Family Ties
by CelticGrace
Summary: Not believing in her once nearly cost him everything. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Very AU. Pre-ME1 thru Post-ME3. Rated M: Language, Violence, Dark Themes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N 1: I was trying to write a prequel to Scar Tissue and ended up writing an alternate version of the story instead *grins*  
A/N 2: Katie = (eventually) Commander Shepard; Steven = Hackett  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.  
*Possible Trigger Warning***

* * *

"Tell him," Katie said. "Go on. Tell him the truth." She took the picture from the memorial shelf behind the bar and shoved it in her uncle Marcus' face. "Tell him how they _really_ died."

"Katie, what the hell has gotten into you?" Jason asked as he tried to wrench the picture from his niece's hands. "It's been twelve years. Let it go."

She growled quietly and shook her head. "It's been twelve years of _lies_, Uncle Jason. I'm tired of you and Daddy not believing Ryan and me."

Jason sighed. "You were three, Ryan was five. You were traumatized and confused. You don't know what you saw."

"No, she's right, Jason. I've been living a lie all these years," Marcus said as he looked at the picture of his half-sister Lara and sister-in-law Rosana, smiling together at Katie's second and Ryan's fourth birthday party. The kids' last, as they had both refused to celebrate their birthdays ever again after the murder of their mothers and grandparents exactly a year later.

Jason looked at his half-brother, startled. "What the hell are you talking about, Marcus?"

Marcus got off of his bar stool and began pacing as he recounted, in an eerily calm voice, everything that had happened that day. "You remember, it was just after the First Contact War. You and Steven were taking shore leave for the kids' birthdays. Lara and Rosana had already taken the kids with them to Mom and Dad's house. I had started towards the spaceport to pick you guys up but instead turned around and went back to the house. Kyle was there, waiting at the side of the house for my signal. I went in, took out the pistol, Kyle's pistol, and shot them all in the head."

Marcus paused in his narrative and Jason, looking horror-struck, opened his mouth to say something, but Katie held up a hand. She knew what was coming next. She wanted Jason to know, no matter how bad he thought it was, in reality, it was so much worse.

"I signaled for Kyle to come in and handed over the gun. He shot me in the shoulder to make it look like he was the one who had killed them all and had just missed when he shot me. Then he grabbed Katie and Ryan and took off. When the cops showed up, I told them I had walked in on him taking the kids and that's when he'd shot me. The plan was for him to kill them as well, but when the cops showed up at the cabin, he chickened out. He actually told them the truth, the entire plan, but since he had the gun and the kids, they didn't believe him."

Silence descended over the bar as the meaning of Marcus' words sank in for Jason. Finally he spoke, his voice rough with barely controlled rage. "So you let a man go to prison for four murders he didn't commit while you walked around devil-may-care all these years? And all these years, you let Steven and me believe our children to be liars?"

Katie shook her head. "Do you have any idea of the hell Ryan and I went through all those times you and Daddy left us with him before you retired?"

Jason raised an eyebrow. "I'll grant you that leaving you with a murderer was a mistake. But, all three of you said when we asked, Katie, that the scars on your face came from tripping into the glass coffee table and Ryan's on his arm were from when you scratched and bit him. And we believed you."

She shook her head again. "That's all true, but not the entire story, which you never asked for by the way. What really happened was that we got into a huge fight in which he told me that it was my fault that Marcus killed everybody and why he wanted to kill us too."

"He actually said that to you?"

Katie shrugged. "Why do you think I scratched and bit him? He's lucky I didn't bite his neck."

Jason growled. "I'm gonna kill that little fuck!"

"And this is why I never said anything," she said, rolling her eyes. "Deep down, I knew he didn't actually mean it and he eventually apologized. Anyway, that's how I ended up in the middle of the coffee table, because when I bit him, naturally he pushed me away. I tripped over my own feet and voilà! But we wouldn't have _had_ that fight if we hadn't been stuck with Marcus. The stress of being around him 24/7 pushed Ryan over the edge."

"Stress, Katie?" Jason asked, still trying to wrap his mind around what Ryan had told her. "You were kids. How much stress could you two have really been under?"

Katie sighed. "Quite a lot actually. Do you have any idea what this jackass is like when he's drunk? He's loud, angry and extremely-"

"Violent," Marcus growled from behind her as he reached out and yanked her from the bar stool by her braid before wrapping his hand around her throat, pulling her body flush with his as he backed up against the wall and pointed a pistol at Jason. "Now you know the truth, little brother. And now, you're going to die."

Jason picked up his own pistol from a shelf under the bar and pointed it at Marcus. "Come on now. Let's be reasonable about this. Let her go and we can talk this out like rational adults."

Marcus scoffed. "Rational? You? Don't make me laugh, Jason. And what do you think you're going to do with that? You don't have a prayer of shooting me without hitting Katie first."

"So you're going to do what? Kill me? What about her? She knows everything too."

"No one would believe her, about any of it. You and Steven have made sure of that. No, after I kill you, I'm going to take her back to my place and keep her as my pet until Steven comes looking for her. Then I'm going to kill him too." Marcus tightened his grip on Katie's throat as he lightly grazed the knuckles of his gun-hand over her breasts and stomach, down to her hip, causing her to shudder involuntarily. As he spoke, his lips brushed the shell of her ear, seemingly purring his taunt at her. "By now, I'm sure she realizes her mistake. So I can do whatever I want to her and I know she'll never say another word to anyone. Wouldn't want anyone else's blood on her hands."

"You sick fuck!" Jason spat out. "What the-" He looked into Katie's eyes and saw fury had been replaced by a haunted look, coupled with pain and fear; this was not news to her. "You've already done this to her before, haven't you?"

"Oh so many times," Marcus said in a self-satisfied voice.

"Why didn't you say anything, Katie?" Jason asked.

Her only answer was a whimper as she tried to pry Marcus' fingers open.

"Who's she going to tell, Jason?" Marcus said with a snide smile as he pointed the gun back at his brother and applied still more pressure to Katie's throat. "The only one who might believe her is Ryan, and that wouldn't help her any. If you didn't believe either of them back when they were children, why on earth would you believe them now?"

"You're a fucking psycho, you know that?" Jason snarled.

"So I've been told," Marcus said sarcastically as he pulled the trigger.


	2. Chapter 2

**UPDATE 6/16/13: Changed a couple of minor details. Carry on.  
A/N: Katie = (eventually) Commander Shepard  
Thanks for the review, fav and follow :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.  
*Possible Trigger Warning***

* * *

"Sir, you have an incoming vidcomm hail."

Admiral Hackett looked up from his desk as his yeoman stepped into his office. "Who is it, Corporal?"

"Your nephew, Ryan. He says it's important."

Hackett nodded and walked across the room to the communicator. He paced impatiently in front of the screen as it flickered to reveal his seventeen-year-old nephew, looking extremely pale and very worried.

"Ryan? What's going on?"

"Something happened, Uncle Steven. And... I know you're not prone to believe me or Katie when it comes to Marcus, but for Katie's sake, this time you have to. Please."

Hackett frowned. "Ryan, you're not making any sense. What happened? Where's Katie?"

"I don't... I don't really know exactly. But my dad got shot. And Katie's gone."

"WHAT?"

"My girlfriend Sara and I had been to a concert. We were going to go by the bar afterwards so she could meet Katie, because I knew she'd still be up. She always is. Anyway, we were heading to my skycar when I got a call from the cops saying my dad had been shot."

"Is he...?"

"It's too soon to tell, is what they keep saying. He just came out of surgery. That's why I waited so long to call."

"It's alright. Is Sara still with you? You don't want to be alone right now, Ryan."

Ryan nodded. "She's still here. She called her parents to tell them what happened and they're coming down too."

"Good. Now, what makes you so sure this has anything to do with Marcus? And what did you mean Katie's 'gone'?"

* * *

Two days later, Hackett found himself standing outside Marcus' apartment in the Lower Wards of the Citadel. He wasn't only going on Ryan's word. There had been no word from Katie, and no one could get in touch with her either. He was running out of options. Something had definitely happened, and Marcus was a good place to start.

"Something I can help you with, Steven?" Marcus asked snidely as he opened the door.

"Ryan called me a couple of days ago, said Jason had been shot," Hackett said as he stepped into the apartment.

"I see. And this has what to do with me?"

Hackett rolled his eyes. "Your lack of caring about your brother is very telling, Marcus. And according to Ryan, it has everything to do with you."

"You've never believed a word Ryan has ever said about me. Why start now?"

"Katie. She was there for her summer visit, has been since the beginning of May. I haven't heard from her since the day before Ryan called me."

Marcus scoffed. "So? She's a fifteen-year-old girl. She's probably busy with her friends. She-"

"She calls me every single day when she's staying with Jason, without fail. The fact that she hasn't called me in two days means something is very wrong. The very fact that _she_ wasn't the one who called me about Jason tells me she's in trouble." The admiral regarded his former brother-in-law suspiciously. "Where'd you get the bruises, Marcus?"

Marcus' answer of "Bar fight. Last night. Two turians." came just a little too readily for Hackett's liking.

"Where's my daughter, Marcus?" he growled.

"I don't know where the bitch is," Marcus said. "And if I did, I don't know why I would tell you."

Hackett chose to ignore, for the moment, the _bitch_ comment. "So if I called her right now, I wouldn't hear her omni-tool beeping?"

Marcus looked around for a moment before answering. "Nope."

"That's as good as a goddamn confession in blood," Hackett said as he raised his arm to bring up his omni-tool.

"That's far enough, Steven," Marcus snarled, raising a pistol.

Before Marcus could react, Hackett's other hand came up with his own pistol. He fired a shot straight at Marcus' chest.

As Marcus crashed to the floor, Hackett holstered his gun, stepping around the body and into the hallway. He checked each room of the apartment, calling out to his daughter but heard no response.

He opened the last door and his heart stopped.

His beloved Katie, a cut by one eye, and her neck, arms and legs covered in bruises, was shackled at her wrists and ankles to the metal headboard of the small bed on the other side of the room. As he walked towards her, she shrank back, cowering into the very corner, trying to get as far away from him… Hackett shook his head in thought. He wasn't the one she was afraid of, not really, though he definitely wasn't her favorite person by a long shot. No, she was still trying to get away from Marcus. It looked as if the bastard had been beating her and doing only God knew what else to her. However, Hackett knew Marcus' bruises hadn't come from any bar fight with turians. That would have landed him in the hospital or the morgue. They'd been from Katie, fighting back... at least at first.

Hackett knelt beside the bed, looking at her with concern as he said gently, "Sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you." She stared at him for a moment, as if wondering if she could trust him, before slowly nodding. He took this as consent and sat on the edge of the bed to hack the locks on the shackles.

As soon as her hands were free, Katie hauled back and punched her father square in the jaw. Her fear of Marcus had ebbed away, leaving only the anger she had held onto for the last twelve years.

Though the hit was hard (no one had ever claimed Katie hit like a girl, and come away unscathed), Hackett didn't flinch. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and gently pulled her onto his lap as she collapsed against him and dissolved into tears, her anger giving way to exhaustion.

"I deserved that," he said quietly. "I can never make up for everything I've done wrong all these years, Katie, but I am sorry I ever doubted you about Marcus, and for all the hell he put you through because of that."

Katie whispered something against his chest that sounded suspiciously like "it's my fault."

Hackett pulled back and gently lifted her face with one hand so that he was looking into her eyes, the same clear ice blue as his own. "You can't tell me you blame yourself for this."

She nodded. "I-I provoked him. I just wanted him tell someone the truth, finally. And he did. He told Uncle Jason. A-and now he's dead because of me," she sobbed.

"He's not dead," Hackett said soothingly. "I've been talking to Ryan every couple of hours the last couple of days since he called to tell me what happened. Jason will be in the hospital for awhile, but he's going to be fine. He hasn't been able to talk yet though, so we didn't know exactly what happened beyond him getting shot. But Ryan was completely convinced it was because of Marcus. He's the reason I found you."

Katie threw her arms around Hackett's neck and hugged him. "Daddy, I'm sorry," she said tearfully as she laid her head on his shoulder. They stayed that way for several minutes, Hackett gently stroking her hair as she cried.

Finally, Katie took a deep shuddering breath and launched into a quiet narrative, describing everything that had taken place at the bar two days earlier.

"As soon as Uncle Jason was down, Marcus dragged me back to his place," Katie said when she was done, her voice trembling slightly. "We came here a couple of hours later."

Hackett didn't say anything for a few minutes. On the outside, he was maintaining control of his emotions, for Katie's benefit, but inside, he was shaking with fury. His little girl, being beaten and raped repeatedly by a man she had adored when she was a small child.

He swept a lock of her dark red hair from her face and gently kissed her forehead. "I'm just glad you're alive, Katie. And that I finally found you."

"Well at least next time, there won't _be_ anyone left to find her," a weak voice said coldly, startling both Hackett and Katie. They looked around to see Marcus leaning against the doorway, one hand clutching his pistol, the other pressed against the wound where Hackett's bullet had struck, higher than he'd intended. "I'll go back and finish off my brother and his meddling son and then I'll be able to keep Katie as my plaything forever."

Hackett got up, pushing Katie behind him as he drew his gun. "No, Marcus. You're never laying a hand on my daughter ever again," he growled. "This ends here and now."

"Whatever," Marcus said. "Your funeral."

Two shots rang out followed moments later by a third.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: If you read Izzy and Zani, you're probably thinking I used Dr. River before. You'd be right. Sort of. But I went back and changed the name in that one to something else. Deal with it. *grin*  
Thanks for the review :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
****Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

Jeff slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings. Then he remembered: knee surgery. _Shit. __Fucking brittle bones. __This __i__s going to be a long, __very boring__ summer._

He slowly turned his head to the left, looking around the med-bay and was very surprised to see his best friend occupying the bed next to his. He noticed beneath the dark red curls that spilled across her pillow, a very recent scar by her right eye and a myriad of healing bruises joined the childhood scars that crossed her normally otherwise flawlessly tanned complexion.

He looked across the bed to see Admiral Hackett sitting beside it, holding Katie's left hand in both of his. He looked beyond exhausted, the bags under his eyes and graying stubble on his chin aging him considerably. Clearly, he hadn't left her side in many days. The admiral looked up and gave Jeff a tight smile as the teen groaned and slowly sat up in his bed.

"Afternoon, Jeff. Glad to see one of you is finally awake. In any pain?"

Jeff shook his head. "No, sir. Not really. Not yet anyway."

"Your mother is coming back in a couple of hours. I told her since I was here for the foreseeable future, you weren't going to be alone when you woke up so she should get some rest."

"Thank you, sir. Can I ask, what happened to Kat? Was she here when I came in for surgery?"

Hackett sighed heavily. "She was. But you were in a different room. As for what happened, Marcus finally got his revenge."

"You mean he finally tried to make good on his promise to kill her and Ryan?"

Hackett shook his head. "No. Honestly, I think somehow that may have made this easier if that were the case. He nearly made good on his apparent promise to kill Jason and myself, actually. Jason is in California, recovering from a shot that came damn close to his heart. Katie on the other hand," he swallowed hard and sighed. "Katie took two bullets that were meant for me. One in the chest and one in the stomach."

"Damn," Jeff muttered.

"Marcus went down a moment after that with a bullet between the eyes," Hackett said darkly.

"Good. Does this mean, sir, that you and Jason finally know, and believe, the whole truth?"

Hackett nodded. "Jason got it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. That's what started the whole thing. Katie tricked Marcus into telling Jason the truth. Then Marcus decided Jason had to die, so he shot him. Then he kidnapped Katie and…" another sigh was pulled from the admiral's lips as a haunted look passed over his face. It was gone as quickly as it had come. "I found her a week ago, tied up in Marcus' apartment on the Citadel. She recounted to me the events that led up to that moment. Marcus came back in just after that; I'd shot him and thought he was dead," he said bitterly. "Then as he fired his gun, Katie pushed me out of the way."

"She may have been carrying a lot of hurt and anger with her all these years, sir," Jeff said quietly. "But through that, she's always loved you."

Hackett nodded. "I know."

"Steven!" a sharp voice barked from the end of the med-bay. Hackett and Jeff looked up to see Dr. River hurrying from her office, looking furious. "Why didn't you tell me Mr. Moreau was awake?"

"Sorry, Melody. We… had to talk," Hackett said defensively. Jeff nodded in agreement. "I assure you, I would have called you if something was wrong."

The doctor rolled her eyes. "Did you go to medical school, Steven? No, as I recall you went into officers training. So, please don't make judgment calls on my patients." Jeff tried unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter at this statement and she glared at him before turning back to the admiral. "You need sleep," she added in a kinder tone. "Proper sleep in your own bed, not sitting in that chair."

"No, I can't leave her, Melody, until I know for sure she'll be OK."

"Steven, you won't be doing Kathrine any favors if you go down when she needs you most."

Hackett tried again. "But–"

"I can sit with her, sir," Jeff offered. "With your permission, of course," he added hastily as he looked hopefully at Dr. River.

She nodded. "That's fine with me. I certainly don't want her waking up alone, and you're stuck in here for the long haul as it is. Might as well do something useful."

Hackett sighed. "Fine. And thank you, Jeff. Still, you should know I'm doing this under protest, Melody."

Dr. River chuckled lightly. "I'd wonder who the hell had replaced you if you weren't, Steven," she teased. "But that's the beauty of being a ship's doctor; I can order even you around, when necessary. Now get out of here. I don't want to see you back here for at least twelve hours." Hackett looked as if he was going to say something again and the doctor added, "Unless Kathrine wakes up."

Hackett leaned down and kissed Katie's forehead before he nodded curtly at Dr. River and Jeff and left the med-bay.

Jeff looked sadly at his life-long best friend as Dr. River began examining him. "How long has she been like that?" he asked quietly.

The doctor sighed heavily. "She's been out for close to six days now. She slipped into the coma shortly after she came out of surgery."

"Will she be OK?" Jeff asked in alarm.

"Yes. It's only a matter of time before she wakes up again. I wouldn't have allowed her to be moved from the hospital on the Citadel if there had been any indication she were in danger. Her body has been through so much trauma, and in such a short period of time, it just needed the uninterrupted rest. I'm kind of hoping she stays unconscious for at least another six to eight hours, so the admiral will sleep. I should have insisted he leave long before now, but he was just so broken up about the whole thing, I just couldn't do it."

"So he told you what happened?"

Dr. River nodded. "Yes. Brave thing she did. Don't know many fifteen-year-olds who would take a bullet for anyone, much less for the father they've had a strained relationship with their whole life. Then again, I've honestly never met anyone quite like Kathrine Hackett." She cleared her throat. "All right, your scans check out, so you can go sit with her."

Jeff nodded. "Thanks, Doc."

She helped him get out of bed and walk to the chair between his and Katie's beds. He took Katie's hand and gently squeezed it as he settled in for a long vigil.

* * *

_Nine hours later…_

Katie shuddered as she woke in a cold sweat. She'd been having a nightmare about Marcus. As the fog of sleep finally lifted, she realized in a panic that she didn't know where she was, but it was obvious she wasn't in his apartment anymore. She felt a hand holding hers and looked down to see Jeff asleep with his head on her hand, her fingers entwined with his. She squeezed his hand and he raised his head after a moment.

"Hey cutie," he said with a small smile.

"Jeff? Where am I?" she asked hoarsely.

He looked at her with concern. "You're home, Kat."

"I can't… I can't remember…" Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Where's my dad? Is he OK?"

Jeff reached out and tucked a curl behind her ear. "Shh," he whispered soothingly. "Your dad's fine. The doc made him leave to get some sleep. He'd been sitting here for days and apparently she'd had enough."

"Why are you here, Jeff?" Katie asked.

He shrugged. "Same old, same old. Another day, another replacement part. Now, I swore to both your dad and Dr. River I'd let them know when you woke up," he said as he typed a message into his omni-tool. He kissed her cheek and gingerly got up. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, her eyes wide with panic. He gently pried her fingers from his wrist, kissed her hand and said, "I'll be right back, Kat. I promise. I'm not leaving, just going to get the doc."

He grabbed his crutches and slowly limped to the end of the med-bay and knocked on the door. A second later, Dr. River came out and they slowly walked back to Katie's bed together, talking in low voices. Katie guessed Jeff was telling the doctor about their conversation and how long she'd been awake.

Dr. River smiled as she came over to the side of the bed. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you awake, Kathrine. How do you feel?"

"Groggy and hella sore," Katie said, taking Jeff's hand as he resumed his seat on the other side of her bed. "Memory's a lot foggy too."

"That's perfectly normal," the doctor said reassuringly as she began doing scans. "You've been unconscious for close to a week. I wouldn't expect you to be completely clear-thinking the moment you woke up."

Katie looked dubious but nodded.

Dr. River looked across at Jeff. "You sent a message to the admiral?"

"Yes. Though since he's supposed to be asleep, I don't know-"

"I'm right here," Hackett said from the doorway. He looked at Katie and smiled. "Hi sweetheart. How are you?"

"OK," she said. Then she frowned. "Daddy, what happened to Marcus?"

"He's really dead this time," Hackett said darkly as he sat next to her bed. "I promise."

She nodded. "Good."

Dr. River cleared her throat. "Did you sleep, Steven?" she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You certainly don't look like a man who has just woken up. Though you do look more rested than before."

"Yes, I slept for about seven hours I think," Hackett said. "But I've been talking to Jason for the last hour."

Katie looked at her father. "Is he OK?"

Hackett smiled. "Yes, sweetheart, he's fine. He's out of the hospital and his doctor said he'll be able to travel soon, so he and Ryan will meet us when we dock at Arcturus in a week."

"And what about me?" Katie asked, looking at Dr. River.

"If you stay out of trouble, you and Mr. Moreau will both be able to leave by the time we get to Arcturus."

Hackett chuckled. "Melody, remember who you're talking to. They'll be causing trouble within the hour."


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for the review :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
****Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

_The peace treaty with the turians had been signed and the war was officially over. Suddenly, the shuttle was on the ground and they were at the gate. Floods of soldiers being greeted by their loved ones. Steven was standing with Jason, scanning the crowds for any sign of a familiar face, when a small blue puff-ball with dark red hair squealed and he caught it just as it launched itself at his chest. He brushed the hair aside and found himself looking at Katie._

"_Hi Daddy!" she said with a grin. "I missed you."_

_He chuckled. "I missed you too, sweetheart." He looked over and saw Jason had a similar reunion with Ryan. Then he looked past Katie and saw his father-in-law Ben standing to the side, smirking. Steven shook his head with a laugh as he switched kids with Jason, saying hello to his nephew._

"_Lieutenants," Ben said with a salute as the two soldiers, each with their own child atop their shoulders, walked up to him._

"_Hey, Dad," Jason said as he returned the salute, Steven doing the same. "Um... not that we're not glad to see you but-"_

"_Where are our wives?" Steven finished with a smirk._

_Ben chuckled. "The ladies are at home planning your welcome home party. The three of us got kicked out."_

_Jason raised an eyebrow. "Dare we ask why?"_

_"Don't ask me. Ask your children."_

"_Memaw kicked _her_ out for being dis... disr... loud," Ryan said, glaring at Katie._

"_He was being loud too!" she protested. Loudly._

_Steven and Jason rolled their eyes. "And you, Dad?" Jason asked as they started toward the skycar lot. "What'd you do to get kicked out?"_

_Ben shrugged. "I believe the words 'too many cooks' and 'always underfoot' may have been used."_

* * *

Hackett was suddenly awakened by an incessant beeping on his omni-tool. He looked up and was startled to see Dr. River standing on the other side of his desk, her arms folded and tapping her foot impatiently.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

She frowned. "You have an odd look on your face, Steven. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Just... a dream. The day we came back from the war. One of the last good days we all had as a whole family." He sighed. "It's not the first time I've had that one in the last week and a half."

"I can imagine."

"So... what, um... why are you here, Melody?"

"Oh. Right. They're gone," the doctor said. "Kathrine and Jeff. Just... left."

The admiral bit his lip to keep from laughing. "I tried to warn you, Melody. They've been getting into copious amounts of trouble since the day they met on their first day of kindergarten."

She glared at him.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I have patients to take care of. I can't go off and find them."

"They _are_ your patients, Melody. And... you can't use the ship's VI to find them?" Hackett shook his head. He knew what was coming as soon as he said the words.

"Kathrine disabled their locators."

"Of course she did." Hackett sighed again. "Fine. I'll go. Not like I need _sleep_ or anything," he said, rolling his eyes as he stood up and walked past Dr. River.

Twenty minutes later, he stood in the doorway of his own quarters. He'd found Katie and Jeff, but whatever trouble Dr. River thought they'd be in, they weren't in it. Instead,Jeff was sitting in the overstuffed loveseat, his leg propped up on an ottoman; Katie was curled up against him. They'd evidently intended to watch a vid, as one was playing on the screen across the room. However, both teens were asleep, her head resting on his chest, his arms wrapped carefully around her.

Hackett shook his head and chuckled to himself as he stepped back out into the hallway to call Dr. River.

"I found them," he said quietly.

"Where? Where the bloody hell are they?" the irate doctor screeched.

"Relax, Melody. They're fine," Hackett said calmly.

"Fine? What did I say about making judgment calls on my patients?"

"You're the one who didn't want to take the time to come find them," he said pointedly.

Dr. River growled. "Where are they, Admiral?"

"They're safe and surprisingly not actually getting into any trouble. They're asleep."

She huffed. "That doesn't answer my question."

"If you're so damn interested in where they are, ask the VI where _I_ am right now," Hackett said. "But you'd better do it quickly, because I'm going back to my office."

* * *

Jeff barely cracked one eye open. "Alright, coast is clear," he said quietly as the admiral's footsteps retreated away from the door.

"Was it my dad?" Katie asked, lifting her head slightly as she opened her eyes and looked around.

"Yup. And he was alone." He shifted a bit, sitting up more fully in the loveseat. "You know if the doc had been with him, she'd be dragging us back to the med-bay by our ears right now."

She giggled as she got up and retrieved their cards and chips from behind the loveseat before she settled back in the seat, sitting cross-legged beside Jeff.

"Alright, where were we? My deal or yours?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for the review****s, new follow and new author fav**** :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

Ryan stood in the docking bay, watching as everyone left the ship and made their way onto various parts of the station. When the crowds finally thinned down to next to nothing, he saw his uncle making his way towards him. Alone.

"Aren't you forgetting someone, Uncle Steven?" he asked as they shook hands.

Hackett chuckled. "I could ask you the same thing, Ryan. Where's your father?"

"One of his old marine buddies from back in the day is stationed here. He's giving him a tour." Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. "So. Where's Katie?"

"Getting a lecture from Dr. River. The Trouble Twins broke out of the med-bay a couple of days ago and she's been fuming ever since." He turned around and started walking back toward the docking tube.

"So you just left them in there with her?" Ryan asked as he ran to catch up.

Hackett shrugged. "I got a lecture of my own when I tried to tell her it was time to leave."

Ryan snorted with laughter.

"You laugh now but-" Hackett's words were cut off as they, quite literally, ran into Jeff and Katie on their way off of the ship.

As the admiral carefully steadied Jeff and his crutches, Ryan kept Katie from falling by pulling her into a bear hug.

Ryan watched as his uncle and Jeff walked on back to the station and then he pulled Katie into a tighter hug.

"Thank you," Katie whispered after they'd stood in silence for awhile.

"For what?"

"For... whatever it was that you said to Daddy that convinced him to check Marcus' apartment. He said you were the reason he found me."

Ryan sighed. "That was-"

Someone cleared their throat. The cousins looked over to see Hackett had returned and had found Jason, who was standing by, waiting to talk to Katie.

"Not yet, Dad," Ryan growled. He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt fiercely protective of Katie. He'd spent the last two weeks worrying about both her and his father, wondering if he was going to lose them both. But now, the anger he'd held onto for the last twelve years decided to surface.

"Ryan? What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"What's _wrong_, Dad? Really?" Ryan asked. "You're joking, right?"

Hackett and Jason looked at each other. Katie said nothing.

"Because of Marcus, may he rot in hell, the four of us are all that is left of our entire family," Ryan said quietly. "But because of _you two_-"

"Ryan, stop," Katie said. "Yes, Marcus is to blame for everything that happened twelve years ago. But everything that happened at the bar..."

"Started because they didn't believe us," Ryan insisted. "Katie, that wasn't your fault. None of it."

"We were kids," she said quietly. "And they had no reason not to believe Marcus."

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Sure, shoot four people execution style in the back of the head and hit the fifth in the fucking shoulder. That makes so much sense."

"I... can't... I can't do this, Ryan," Katie said as she ducked out of his embrace. The others watched as she ran down into the docking bay and disappeared into the crowds on the station.

* * *

Jeff's omni-tool beeped. He muttered curses under his breath as he read the message: _I'm stuck in a tree._ That was Katie Speak for "Help me!" He knew it must have been a family argument. That was the only time she ever used that out.

* * *

_Inter Relay Text Chat_

_Location: Arcturus_

_From: Jeff Moreau_

_To: Katie Hackett_

_13:50 JM: Where are you?_

_14:00 JM: Kat? You still there?_

_14:01 KH: I'm wandering around. _

_14:01 KH: Trying to think of a place they won't automatically think to look._

_14:02 JM: What happened?_

_14:10 KH: I'm at Kirby Dalton Park, by your place._

_14:11 JM: On my way._

_14:12 User Disconnected._

* * *

Jeff found Katie sitting up against the maple tree in the center of the park. Her head was resting on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. He eased down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked after awhile.

"Apparently, Ryan is... well, he's always been kinda angry, ever since I can remember. Since... that day," she said, talking to her knees. "But today, he started yelling at my dad and Uncle Jason and... then we started yelling at each other and... I couldn't take it anymore so I just... left. The last time Ryan and I got into a fight was when I was four, the whole coffee table incident. I guess we were long overdue for another one."

"Yelling about what?" Jeff asked.

"Ryan was trying to say that what happened two weeks ago was ultimately Daddy and Uncle Jason's fault. That if they'd just believed us twelve years ago, none of this would have happened."

"And?"

Katie sighed. "And I said it just wasn't reasonable that they were going to believe two kids-"

"Their _own_ kids," Jeff said.

"Whatever. The fact remains that we were just kids."

"So if that's your line of thinking now, what the hell prompted you to confront Marcus at the bar?"

"I... don't know."

"I do." Jeff and Katie looked up to see Ryan standing beside the tree.

Katie glared. "Did Daddy tell you I was here?"

Ryan grinned. "Maybe."

"So much for 'someplace they won't automatically look,' genius," Jeff said with a smirk. He kissed her on the cheek and then looked up at Ryan. "Give me a hand will you? I'll give you two some time."

Ryan sat next to Katie as Jeff started back towards his apartment.

"So, you were saying?" she said as she leaned her head on her cousin's shoulder.

"Back then, we both thought the fact that we were their kids meant they should just automatically believe us. Plus, we were telling them the exact same thing Kyle was telling them, so that should do it."

"You'd think we would have gotten smarter and realized that's not the way the world works as we got older though, Ryan," Katie said.

"Reasonable people would have done that, yes. But we've been so blinded by anger for the last twelve years, we couldn't see past that. We couldn't see that it just wasn't reasonable for our dads or the cops to believe kids, _or_ the guy who kidnapped us and had the murder weapon, over the adult 'witness.'"

"Yeah, I guess. So, are they mad?"

"At you, of course not. At me, very."

Katie grinned. "Sorry."

Ryan stood up again. "Are you done running? They may not be mad at you but they are worried about you."

She rolled her eyes as he hauled her to her feet. "Surprised they sent you then. They weren't worried there'd be another _coffee table incident_?"

He chuckled. "I think they trust we've matured beyond that, if only just. Thank you _so_ much for mentioning the reason behind that, by the way," he added sarcastically. "My dad has been yelling at me about that since yours called to say you'd finally woken up."

"Yeah, I didn't really mean to..." she sighed. "I was on a roll and once I started talking about all the crap that happened back then, I couldn't stop."

Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked towards the Hacketts' apartment. "It's OK. It would have come out eventually, I'm sure. Now walk faster. My dad's exceptionally pissed at me since he hasn't even gotten to say 'boo' to you yet."

When Katie and Ryan got back to her apartment, they found their fathers pacing anxiously.

"It's alright. Look. Nobody bit or scratched anybody or shoved anybody," Ryan said as he held out his arms and Katie turned her head to both sides to show neither of them had any new injuries.

Hackett and Jason both rolled their eyes. Then Ryan gave Katie a little nudge in Jason's direction, since her feet seemed be glued to the ground, before he and Hackett made a quick exit.

* * *

Jason looked at Katie, who looked away. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. She immediately burst into tears.

"I thought you were dead," she said after awhile. "I'm sorry. If I hadn't provoked Marcus-"

"If you hadn't provoked Marcus, then he'd still be... how long, Katie?"

When she didn't answer, he put a finger under her chin to raise her head up so she was looking at him. "How long had it been going on?"

She tried to look away but couldn't. "S-six weeks," she whispered. "It started a couple of days into my summer visit."

"Six _weeks_? Christ," Jason muttered. "That sonofa... bastard deserved so much more than a simple shot between the eyes. He needed a goddamn beating."

"I..." Katie smirked. "I'm sorry, did you almost call your mother a bitch?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks for the review ****and new follow**** :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

Admiral Hackett shot up in bed when he heard a piercing scream, followed by a loud crash and the sounds of a struggle. He ran into Katie's bedroom and found her on the floor, fighting to get out of her sheets and blanket. He knelt on the floor beside her and helped her get disentangled, dodging her still-flailing arms as he tried to calm her down.

"Sweetheart, what happened?" he asked gently as she finally stopped fighting and he pulled her into his arms.

"Dr. River told me I should start trying to wean myself off the pain meds," she said quietly. "But apparently that's the only thing that's stopping the nightmares."

"Nightmares about Marcus?" he asked carefully.

She nodded. She suddenly stood up and started pacing.

He sat on the edge of her bed and watched her for a few minutes. Finally, curiosity got the best of him. "Katie, what are you doing?"

She stopped so suddenly, he had the feeling that she'd forgotten he was even there. "Remember when..." She sighed. "Of course you do. Stupid question. When I told you what happened at the bar..." She trailed off again and didn't say anything for several minutes.

"Sweetheart, whatever it is you're trying to tell me, if you don't want to say it, it's OK," Hackett said.

Katie shook her head. "Six weeks, Daddy. It wasn't just... just the two days on the Citadel. It was..." She sank to the floor, her back against the wall. "T-the entire six weeks I was staying at Uncle Jason's."

Hackett frowned. "_What_ was six..." He suddenly realized exactly what she meant. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. He got up and stalked out of the room. "I'm gonna kill him... both of them."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katie scramble up from the floor and she grabbed his arm. "Daddy, it wasn't their fault," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

He shook his head as he turned to wrap his arms around her. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but you're going to have to explain that to me. Because I'm having a very hard time figuring out how this could have happened for six goddamn weeks without one or both of them noticing something was going on."

"Marcus exploited the fact that because Uncle Jason is at the bar every night, he sleeps a lot during the day. He only took me when he knew Ryan was either at work or out with Sara."

"So basically they were too _busy_ to notice you were..."

"I'd like to point out, Daddy, that this was no different than last year. Ryan had a girlfriend and a job last summer too."

Hackett thought of something else. "Even if they didn't notice you were gone, which I still think is completely ridiculous, wouldn't they have noticed if you had bruises or..." He sighed. He didn't want to think about what Marcus had actually done to her.

"Not really, no," she said. "I always have a few scratches or bruises from going rollerblading or surfing."

He pulled back to look at her and raised an eyebrow.

Katie shrugged. "What? Have you ever seen me trying to skate? And don't even get me started on the surfing." She sighed. "I don't know what to do, Daddy."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't keep taking pain pills, and I can't just replace them with sleeping pills. And, though God knows I've tried, I can't just stop sleeping altogether."

"So that's what Ryan meant," Hackett said.

"What?"

"That morning when he called me, he said that he and Sara had planned to stop by the bar after the concert because he knew you'd still be up. He said you always were. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, but then I realized all of this must have happened after the bar closed for the night, so it was at least 0230."

She nodded.

"Did you sleep _at all_ while you were at Jason's?"

"Yes," she said quickly and walked past him into the living room where she curled up at one end of the couch.

Hackett frowned as he followed her. Something was off. He sat down on the coffee table and leaned his elbows on his knees. "How were you getting to sleep?"

She neither looked at him nor answered his question.

"Katie? I'm not angry at you sweetheart."

She sighed. "I know, Daddy. I'm just... I've dug myself into a hole that I can't get out of."

"What do you mean?"

"I have to stop taking the pain meds eventually. I know that. But... the way I was getting to sleep at Uncle Jason's wasn't any better."

"Which was?" he prompted gently.

"Whiskey."

Hackett put his head in his hands. "I'm going to kill him," he growled. "I swear to God."

"And this is why I didn't want to tell you."

He looked up at her again. "Please, please don't try and tell me that Jason didn't notice his whiskey had started going missing."

She shook her head. "No, he noticed. He never said anything though. I _think_ he assumed Ryan was stealing it."

"And the Parent of the Year Award goes to Jason Shepard," Hackett said, rolling his eyes. "You're not going back next summer."

"Daddy! That's not fair. It wasn't Uncle Jason's fault."

"He didn't even notice you were drunk, Katie."

"I _wasn't_," she protested. "I only drank a couple of shots every night before I went to bed. By the time I got up, the effects had worn off." She sighed and stretched out on the couch. "Can we talk about this later, Daddy? I'm really tired."

"I know, sweetheart. Do you think you'll be able to sleep without the pain medication tonight or do you want to take it?"

She looked up at him with what looked like mock surprise. "You are actually encouraging me to defy doctor's orders?"

He chuckled. "You said she told you to _try_ to start weaning of the medication. Well, you tried. It didn't work." He went into the kitchen to get her pills and a glass of water. He handed them to her and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "You'll try again tomorrow."

"And if it doesn't work then?"

Hackett smiled as he sat in the recliner beside the couch. "Patience. You'll get there. But no more whiskey."


	7. Chapter 7

**Thanks for the review****s ****and new follows ****:)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
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* * *

The next few months passed by fairly uneventfully. Jeff and Katie spent nearly all of their time together, even with the added burden of classes once school started again.

When the holidays rolled around, the Hacketts and the Moreaus spent a pleasant Thanksgiving together. Then Jason and Ryan came back to Arcturus for Christmas, things got tense and Katie jokingly asked Jeff's parents if they would adopt her. Jeff nearly cracked a rib and his father choked on his eggnog from laughing when his mother actually said yes.

The second semester of Katie and Jeff's sophomore year went along much the same as the first. One Friday afternoon in April, Katie stayed after school to get help with math. She'd tried to get Jeff to stay, reminding him exams were coming up soon (he knew then she was mostly back to her old self if she was nagging him about exams) but he begged off, saying he'd be waiting when she was done. There was something he had to do while she was distracted.

He wasn't actually going anywhere, but he needed to have a chat with her father. Tomorrow was Katie's birthday and he intended to try to take her mind off of it. He'd had to have a lengthy discussion with his mother after she tried to plan a party, explaining that, especially after what had happened the year before, a party was the absolute last thing Katie needed.

* * *

_IRTC_

_Location: Arcturus_

_From: Jeff Moreau_

_To: Admiral Hackett_

_15:52 J: Sorry to bother you, sir, but I need to talk to you about Katie._

_15:54 H: Is she alright?_

_15:55 J: Yes, sir. She's doing some tutorial thing for math. Tried, and failed, to get me to take it. _

_15:55 H: Well, I'm sure your parents won't hold it against her if you fail your math exam._

_15:56 J: We'll see. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow._

_15:57 H: You know she doesn't celebrate her birthday, Jeff._

_15:58 J: Yes, sir, I know that. I also know that she gets really depressed every year on her birthday. Given how this last year has gone, I'm guessing that might be especially true tomorrow. _

_15:59 H: And you want to do something to take her mind off of it._

_16:00 J: Yes, sir._

_16:02 H: What did you have in mind?_

_16:04 J: I don't have all the details worked out yet, sir. I just wanted to see if it was OK with you if she was out most of the day._

_16:05 H: Aside from it being her birthday, it won't be any different than any other day, Jeff. You two are out all day every day._

_16:06 J: Point taken, sir. _

_16:07 H: This is good actually. I unfortunately have a meeting for most of the day. Glad to know she won't be alone. Not that I expected her to be._

_16:08 J: Thank you, sir._

_16:10 J: Apparently she's done. I can feel her glaring at me. _

_16:11 H: Good luck._

_16: 12 User Disconnected. _

* * *

Katie woke Saturday morning with a plan. She was going to stop being so depressed and maybe actually enjoy her birthday for once. That was the best revenge, right?

She decided to call Ryan to tell him about her new plan. As she picked up her omni-tool to call him, it beeped with a vid-chat request from him.

"Hey kid," he said when she answered. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head. "No I was... 'kid'? Really? The second you turn 18, suddenly I'm a kid?" she said with mock indignation.

He grinned. "Excellent. Something new to add to my list of Things That Make Katie Mad."

She rolled her eyes. "I can see you're going to be a _very_ mature adult."

"So how ya doin'?"

"Pretty good. I decided something this morning actually."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Care to share with the rest of the class?"

"That's why I was calling."

"Um... I called _you_, Katie."

"I was _trying_ to call you but you beat me to it. _Anyway_, I've decided that I'm not going to be depressed about today anymore. I'll remember everybody, like I do every year, but I'm not going to sit around and mope like I usually do."

Ryan nodded. "Good. Me too."

"Great minds and all?" Katie said with a smirk.

He grinned. "Something like that."

"You realize this may give our dads heart attacks that we've actually matured."

"Speak for yourself," he said with a wink.

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, _one_ of us has matured."

There was another beep on her omni-tool, a message from Jeff: _The tree. One hour._

She looked back at her vid-chat. "Crap. Ryan, sorry, I gotta go."

"Jeff?" he said with a knowing smirk.

She rolled her eyes again. "Bite me."

He laughed. "Have fun, kid. And happy birthday."

Katie grinned. "Happy birthday, Ryan."

Twenty minutes later, she was working through her second Boston cream doughnut when her father came into the kitchen carrying a box.

She smiled. "Hi Daddy."

"'Morning, sweetheart," he said. "You're in an awfully good mood."

Katie raised an eyebrow.

"Not that that's a bad thing. What's going on?"

"I decided I'm gonna have a happy day today, that's all," she said.

He smiled. "Glad to hear it."

"What's in the box, Daddy?"

He handed it to her. "It's a present from your mother."

Katie blinked and looked up at him. "How's that now?"

He smiled. "Just open it."

She lifted the lid and stared at the silver shamrock pendant necklace lying on top of a handwritten note. She took out the note and her eyes filled with tears as she read her mother's words:

* * *

Kathrine Anne,

This necklace was given to me by my mother on my sixteenth birthday, as it was given to her on hers. So I'm passing it on to you.  
The engraving on the back has been worn away through the years, but it was part of an old Irish blessing:

_May the road rise to meet you.  
May the wind be ever at your back.  
_

Happy 16th birthday, sweetheart.  
Love, Mom

* * *

Katie looked up to see her father watching her.

"Thanks, Daddy," she said with a smile as she took the pendant out of the box and hooked the clasp at the back of her neck.

"You're not upset, are you?" he asked quietly. "You do have that whole 'no presents for your birthday' rule."

She shook her head. "Of course not. I love it. I'm... a little confused though. Did Mom actually write the note?"

"Yes."

"When? It's like she... knew she wasn't going to be around on my 16th birthday or something."

Her father chuckled. "No, it was nothing like that. It's just a tradition that goes with the necklace. I'm not sure who it first belonged to, but your grandmother wasn't the first recipient. I don't think she even knew. Anyway, it was tradition that a note, whatever was going to be said, was written the day the daughter was born."

"Guess that explains the full name." Katie was quiet for awhile, rereading the note. Then she looked back up at her father. "Was Mom wearing the necklace the day that-"

He shook his head. "No. She hadn't been wearing it for months before that. I asked her about it when Jason and I got back from the war. Apparently, you had been playing with it a lot and she was afraid the chain would break. So she'd put it away until you were older."

Katie laughed. "Oh. Well, I have always liked shiny things." She got up and walked to the other side of the breakfast bar to give her father a kiss on the cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Thanks, Daddy," she said again. "I think this may be the best birthday ever. That I can remember, anyway."

* * *

"I was beginning to wonder if you were gonna show up," Jeff said when Katie wandered over to the tree in the park by his apartment.

She grinned. "Sorry. I was talking to Ryan when you sent me that message and then... Daddy gave me a birthday present."

"Hey!" he protested. "I thought that wasn't allowed."

She laughed. "First of all, he's my dad, he can do whatever he wants-"

"That was _not_ the impression I got at Christmas, Kat," Jeff teased.

She ignored him. "Second of all, the present wasn't technically from him. It was from my mom."

He gave her a look that she thought probably resembled the one she'd given her father earlier.

She smirked. "Yup, that's what I said." She showed him the necklace. "It's a family tradition on my mom's side."

"That's really cool. So, first stop the usual?"

"Of course," Katie said. "After that though, today's a new day."

"In the way that _every _day is a new day, Kat?" Jeff asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Smartass. No, I mean the Bastard Who Shall Remain Nameless Forevermore isn't going to have any influence on my life anymore. Other than the ways that... yeah."

Jeff looped his arm through hers as they walked toward the chapel. "I know what you meant, Kat."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Short chapter is very short, but necessary LOL Next chapter will be much longer, I promise.  
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Beta: pixelatrix  
****Thanks also to mydearbriana :)  
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* * *

True to his word of the previous year, Hackett refused to let Katie spend the summer with Jason. This turned out to be a good thing when she had a meltdown at Ryan's graduation party. Hackett found her afterward, passed out in her old room at Jason's house, having drunk an entire bottle of whiskey. Far from arguing about it, Jason agreed that any length of time spent at the bar wouldn't be good for her. Katie disagreed vehemently, stopped speaking to both of them and spent the summer with Jeff's family instead. It took Jeff the entire three months to convince her that her father and uncle weren't the enemy and that drinking an entire bottle of whiskey was not a good solution to _any_ problem.

The following summer, there was no argument. There was no reason for one, because Katie didn't even bring up the subject of going to stay with Jason. She was too preoccupied by the surprise addition to the Moreau family, a baby girl named Hilary. She had offered to help look after Hilary when Mrs. Moreau went back to work, an idea which was met by approval from all sides, except Jeff, who didn't see the fun in spending summer vacation taking care of an infant. But by the end of the summer, he was just as smitten as everyone else.

Their senior year was spent listening to teacher after teacher giving the same damn speech over and over: "Think about what you want to do after you graduate! It's important!" Katie and Jeff, along with the rest of the class, tuned them out after the first week. Most of them had had their plans figured out since elementary school, if not earlier. They were all hitting the recruitment office on their 18th birthdays. All except those who had slightly younger friends with whom they'd made pacts to wait to sign up together. Like Jeff and Katie, who had made such a pact in ninth grade.

Finally, Katie's 18th birthday rolled around. The second school was out, she and Jeff (who had turned 18 two months before) were at the recruitment office, signing up. Admiral Hackett stood by, watching sadly. He had known for years that she'd do it; she'd told him she would someday when he and Jason had come home from the First Contact War.

He wasn't prepared, however, when she told him she wanted to change her name, though he did understand her reasoning.

"Sorry, Dad," she said quietly. "But I want to be able to succeed or fail because of _me_ not because of my name."

He nodded. "I know, sweetheart. So from now on you're going to be known as...?"

She grinned. "Kat Shepard."


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks for the review :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
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* * *

_Five Years Later..._

Sole Survivor. That's what the damn media kept calling her. Shepard wished they'd stop. It had been her first assignment after graduating as N7 from the Interplanetary Combatives Training Academy and her entire unit, all fifty soldiers, had been lost in a thresher maw attack on the colony of Akuze. She'd been the only one able to crawl back to the LZ, battered and covered in burns from thresher maw acid before she'd passed out. When she woke up, she was on a medical transport, on her way to an Alliance hospital somewhere on Earth.

She'd spent two weeks in that damn hospital. The experience was not unlike when she was 15, except that Jeff, now an Alliance pilot, wasn't there to help take her mind off the pain and the nightmares. She wasn't lacking for company, however. Her family had been by at various times during the two weeks and now that she was leaving, she had another visitor.

"So you know my dad how exactly?" Shepard asked as she packed her duffel bag, warily regarding the scarred mercenary who stood in the doorway of her hospital room.

"Fought together with him and your uncle in the war," he said gruffly. "Been friends ever since."

"How sweet. Why are you here?"

He shrugged as he pushed off of the door frame and walked into the room. "I owe one or the other of them a favor or two. Probably both. So, I'm supposed to 'keep an eye on you so you don't get into trouble,' which I assume means make sure you don't shoot one of these goddamn reporters."

Kat laughed. "Shoot, punch, headbutt, mouth off to. Take your pick."

"I'm also supposed to make sure you actually get to where you're going when you leave the hospital. Your old man said Arcturus."

She grimaced and shook her head. "No thanks. Too many people, too many questions." She bit her lip in thought then grinned mischievously. "How much would I have to pay you to take me to my uncle's bar in Solana Beach instead?"

* * *

Jason looked up as he always did when the front door of the Argo opened. He nearly dropped the pitcher of beer he was filling however when he saw who had walked in.

"Katie?" He rounded the bar and pulled his niece into a hug. "How are you? I thought you were supposed to be on Arcturus."

She smiled weakly. "I'm... I have OK days, bad days and really shitty days," she answered truthfully. "I just figured it'd be a little quieter and a little easier to hide here than it would be on Arcturus."

"Did you tell your father about your change of plans?"

"No."

Jason then looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow at the man who had come in behind her. "Massani? What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

"Playing goddamn babysitter and chauffeur."

"A dangerous job," Jason said with a smirk. "Especially if it involves _this_ one."

Kat sighed. "Can I get a drink, Uncle Jason?"

"No."

She glared at him. "Why the hell not? I'm not fucking sixteen anymore."

"Because, Katie, you drink a _lot_ when you're upset."

"This isn't like Ryan's graduation."

Jason scoffed. "You know that had absolutely nothing to do with Ryan graduating. It's... this bar and everything that happened here. That's why I agreed with your father when he wouldn't let you come back that summer."

Kat rolled her eyes again. "Whatever. I'm done. I don't want to argue with you, Uncle Jason, but obviously, it was a mistake coming here."

As she turned on her heels and stormed out, Jason looked at Zaeed. "Do not let her out of your sight," he said seriously. "She gets... reckless when she's upset. And tomorrow is... well, you remember what tomorrow is."

The mercenary nodded and left the bar.

* * *

Zaeed caught up to Shepard hobbling down the street half a block from the Argo, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. "Where are you going, Shepard?" he asked as he touched her arm.

"The hell do you care?" she asked, turning to face him as they reached an alley between two apartment buildings. "You don't even know me."

He chuckled. "I know a hell of a lot more than you think, sweetheart. Besides, I've got a place you can stay if you're shunning family." When she looked skeptical, he added, "And I've got booze."

She was about to respond when he noticed her eyes fixed on a point behind him and she swore under her breath.

He frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Fucking reporters," she muttered as she stepped closer to him. "Bet they were in the goddamn bar."

He took the bag from her and put an arm around her waist as he slowly backed her up into the wall in the alley. He leaned against the wall slightly, effectively shielding her from view if anyone looked into the alley from the street.

"Thanks."

Zaeed looked down to see Kat talking to his chest. He chuckled. "My eyes are up here, Shepard."

She looked up at him with an eyebrow raised. "You mentioned something about booze."

He smirked. "I did." He kept the arm around her waist as they turned back toward the street, her bag slung over his shoulder. "Come on, my apartment's not far."

Shepard groaned when her omni-tool beeped a few minutes later as they reached Zaeed's apartment building. It was, as she expected, a vid-chat request from her father. She ignored it and followed the mercenary into his small one-bedroom flat. A second beep was a message: _Vid-chat. Now._ She rolled her eyes and huffed a sigh of frustration as she flopped down on Zaeed's couch while he went over to the bar and got a bottle of whiskey.

"What the hell are you doing in Solana Beach, Katie?" Hackett growled when she finally opened the vid-chat link.

"Well, hello to you too, Dad."

"Answer the question."

"Trying to avoid... things," she said finally.

Zaeed sat next to her on the couch and Hackett started in on him as well. "Massani, I thought you were going to make sure she made it back to Arcturus."

The mercenary shrugged. "She pays better than you do."

Hackett rolled his eyes. "Arcturus. Tomorrow."

Kat shook her head. "No. Doctors told me to relax. And I'm trying to avoid reporters and... other _nosy_ people. Only way to do that on Arcturus is to spend all my time locked up in the apartment. I just spent two weeks in the fucking hospital. I need to be able to fucking breathe."

Hackett sighed. "Fine. Then I'll be down sometime tomorrow afternoon." He gave her a pleading look. "Will you just... try not to kill Jason until then? He's only looking out for you."

She rolled her eyes. "I know, Dad. But guess what? Sometimes, what I really need is a goddamn drink!"

"Massani-"

"Already got the speech, Steven," Zaeed said. "She'll be fine."

Hackett nodded. "I'm holding you to that. Hackett out." The link was disconnected.

Kat sighed as she shut off her omni-tool. "That went... better than I expected."

Zaeed looked over at her. "Come on. You said you needed to breathe. Let's go get drunk on the balcony."

"Yeah, that seems like such a spectacular idea," she said with a smirk as she took the hand he offered and followed him out onto the balcony. They sat together in the double-wide lounge chair and opened the bottle of Jack Daniel's Zaeed had brought out.

Two hours later, they'd finished the first bottle and the second was nearly gone as well.

"Very nice," Kat said suddenly.

Zaeed turned his head to look at her. "What is?"

"This. It's relaxing, just being able to sit here and not worry about... anything." She sighed. "Thanks for not being..."

"Like your father and uncle?" he supplied.

She giggled and looked at him. "I was gonna say 'judge-y' but yeah... like them."

"Steven did _warn_ me about you, by the way."

She raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"Basically he said 'Don't piss her off. If she runs away and you lose track of her, I'll kill you.'"

Kat rested her head on his shoulder. "Well, I wasn't planning on running away from _you_."

Zaeed chuckled as she stifled a yawn. "Sweetheart, I don't think you'd make it very far even if you did," he said, gently pulling her into his lap. "At least not right now."

She shook her head against his chest. "Definitely not. Too comfy... you're a very comfy pillow."


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks for the review ****and new follow**** :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

Zaeed couldn't sleep. It had nothing to do with being drunk or not actually sleeping in a bed. Those were all too common to bother him. No, this was entirely because of the woman sleeping in his arms.

He'd known Kat and Ryan since they were children, though she'd never known him. Her father didn't _approve_ of the line of work he'd chosen after the war.

He'd already been off-planet and too far away to travel back when the murders happened, so he hadn't been able to attend the joint funeral mass that had been held. But they'd kept in touch over the years.

Zaeed frequented the Argo whenever he was a shuttle-ride away on a job. And that's where he'd stayed for awhile after he'd been betrayed by his partner and so-called friend, shot in the face and left to die just so the bastard could take sole ownership of their mercenary gang. Zaeed's jaw clenched in anger as he thought about Vido.

And then his thoughts drifted again to Kat. He remembered that day eight years ago and the sheer panic on Steven's face when the Admiral had called, asking for help in finding Marcus. Zaeed didn't ask why. He'd never liked Marcus, always felt there was something off about him. But then Steven had called back, four days later. The panic was still evident, but it was for an entirely different reason. And Zaeed had listened as Steven told him what had happened with Jason and then with Kat.

"_She saved my life, Massani. __It shouldn't have been like this. Fathers are supposed to protect their daughters, not the other way around."_

Zaeed remembered Steven saying he had taken the bullets and put them on a chain which he wore with his dog tags.

The mercenary was brought back to the present by Kat whimpering and flinching in her sleep. She woke with a start and bolted from the chair.

"Damn him. _Damn him!_" she muttered as she started pacing around the balcony.

"Shepard? What's wrong?" Zaeed asked as he watched her, shifting so he was sitting on the edge of the chair.

She spun around so fast, he was amazed she wasn't dizzy. She came over to stand in front of him. "What did you mean before?" she asked quietly. "When you said you know a hell of a lot more than I think you do?"

"Let me put it this way," he said as he stood up and put an arm around her shoulder, guiding her back inside the apartment. "There's not a whole lot I _don't_ know about you. Except the story behind your tattoos." He stopped and turned so he was facing her and took her left hand in his as he used the fingers of his other hand to trace the outline of the tattoo on her left shoulder. "The others, the Alliance stars and bars and the N7 in the cross-hairs, those are self-explanatory. But this one, it doesn't fit."

"Technically, it's still related. It's a joker's hat, for my best friend Jeff. One of his instructors in flight school nicknamed him Joker because he _never_ smiled. Now he's lucky if anyone even remembers what his real name is." Shepard sighed and moved over to the couch before continuing. "Anyway, I have the hat and he got a black cat, partially because even when we were kids, he always called me Kat and also because my N7 nickname is Shadow Cat. He has a slight needle phobia and only agreed to get the tattoo on one condition: if I promised not to use alcohol to try to forget my problems with my family. The last time I did that, Ryan's graduation, I ended up not speaking to my dad or my uncle for three months."

Zaeed sat on the coffee table across from Shepard. "So tonight was... what?"

She sighed again and shook her head. "I don't know. A promise broken, is probably what Jeff will say."

He took her hands in his, rubbing gentle circles on the backs of them with his thumbs. "_Or_ he'll realize that it wasn't the family that was the reason you felt the need to drink tonight."

She looked doubtful when she said, "I guess."

He stood and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. You need more sleep. You can sleep in the bed, I'll sleep on the couch."

She shook her head as she clung to his shoulders like a lifeline. "No, please don't leave. I can't... can't sleep alone. Not tonight."

* * *

Zaeed heard a loud and persistent beeping coming from his bedside table. He hit the button to turn off his alarm and the beeping stopped. However, it was replaced moments later by loud and creative swearing. He turned his head and blinked a few times against the sunlight streaming through the window. When his vision finally cleared, he saw Jason on Kat's omni-tool vid-chat.

_Fuck_.

"This is _not_ what I meant when I said don't let her out of your sight, Massani," Jason snarled.

"Bloody hell, Jason, it's too early for... this," Zaeed muttered. "Nothing... this isn't what it looks like. Seriously."

Shepard rolled over and groaned. "Who the fuck is being so loud?" she asked as she rested her head on Zaeed's shoulder.

Jason scoffed. "Not what it looks like? You really expect me to-"

"Careful, Jason," Zaeed warned. "You're coming awfully close to implying something. You cross that line, there's no going back. She'll never forgive you. Come to think of it, neither will I."

"I didn't-"

Kat raised up, her arms on Zaeed's chest, her head on her arms. "Uncle Jason, if you intend to call me a whore, please do it _quietly_. Not that it's any of your goddamn business, but this is the sum total of what we did last night: we talked, drank two bottles of whiskey and talked some more. That's it. End of story. Good-bye." She reached over and hit the button to disconnect the call.

"That was... impressive," Zaeed said with a hint of a smile as he pulled her into his arms to keep her from taking a nosedive off of the bed.

She grinned. "It was pretty damn good considering I'm not entirely awake yet." She hit the button when her omni-tool beeped again, expecting it to be Jason calling back. It was Ryan.

"Hey k-"

"Nope," she said as she shook her head and hung up. She leaned back against Zaeed and sighed.

He ran his fingers through her hair. "You OK?"

"Not really." She turned her head to look at him. "Can I skip today, just go on to tomorrow?"

"That would be-" Zaeed was interrupted by someone pounding loudly on his front door. "Seriously?" he growled. "It's not even 0700. What the hell is going on?"

"Can't get any damn peace," Kat said. Her omni-tool beeped for the third time. She reluctantly hit the button to answer it and let out a startled squeak as she saw who it was and promptly fell off the bed.

"Answer the goddamn door," Hackett growled.

Zaeed was sorely tempted to throw Kat's omni-tool across the room, but settled for hitting the button to disconnect the call instead as he rolled off the bed and picked her up off the floor.

"That sounded like it hurt," he said, gently cupping her face in his hands as he checked for injury.

"It did," she grumbled.

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. "Come on. Let's go face Hurricane Steven."

"Steven, is there some reason you're trying to break down my door this early in the morning?" Zaeed asked icily a few minutes later as Admiral Hackett stalked into the room, a murderous look on his face.

"You. I asked you to look after my daughter and this... _this_ is..." Hackett trailed off, grinding his teeth as he paced the room.

"Again, _Dad_, as I told Uncle Jason when he called at... whatever ungodly hour this is," Kat said as she walked over to stand in front of Zaeed. "_Nothing happened_. And again, _it's none of your fucking business if it did_."

"Katie-"

"_NO_, Dad. I'm sick of this. You guys keep treating me like a goddamn child, think you can dictate whatever the fuck I do. _You_ can do that all the fuck you want once I come back from shore leave, but until then, _leave me the fuck alone_."

Hackett seemed to have been rendered completely speechless, a feat Zaeed hadn't realized was possible.

Kat glared at her father for a moment, as if daring him to say something, before she turned and kissed Zaeed, winked at him and stormed out.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks for the review :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

As soon as Kat was out the door, Hackett tried to call her. She hung up on him every time. Eventually, he gave up and rounded on Zaeed.

"This is your fault," the Admiral growled. "If you hadn't-"

"Not _my_ bloody fault at all, Steven. Jason's the one who started making assumptions and pissed her off."

Hackett didn't seem to have a comeback for that.

"Just... leave her alone. Let her cool off," Zaeed said. "You told me once that she goes to church first thing on her birthday. Is that still the case?"

"As far as I know."

"Alright, then you go to Jason's. I'll go look for her in a couple of hours."

"Fine." Hackett narrowed his eyes. "But if _anything_..."

"Oh shut up, Steven," Zaeed snarled. "And get out."

* * *

The mercenary didn't have to look very far at all when he set out to find Kat three hours later. He nearly tripped over her when he walked out of his front door. She sat huddled in the hallway, her head in her knees, her shoulders shaking with silent tears.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asked as he crouched down in front of her.

She shook her head and said nothing.

In one motion, he took her hands in his as he stood up, pulled her to her feet and into his arms.

"On my 16th birthday, I swore to myself that I wasn't going to let that bastard ruin my life anymore," she whispered into his shoulder. "And yet, seven years later, he's still doing it."

Zaeed pulled her tighter against him. "It's not Mar-" He was cut off by her fingers pressing against his lips.

"Don't say his name," she said firmly. "If we _must_ talk about him or..." she shuddered, "think about him, he's the Bastard Who Shall Remain Nameless Forevermore."

He kissed her fingers before moving them. "That's a little much to remember. I'll just go with the Bastard. Fair warning, at the moment, I may not always be talking about _him_."

She giggled. "Fine."

"Anyway, not that I'm defending the Bastard or his actions in any way, but this, what's happened in the last 24 hours, wasn't him."

She leaned back to look at him. "Seriously? You're saying my dad and uncle are just naturally this interfering and nosy?"

"Something like that. All dads are like that, to some degree."

"I guess."

He kissed her forehead. "You eat breakfast yet?"

"Not... exactly. I met up with Ryan at the church, I apologized for hanging up on him and we went in. We went to a diner afterward and I got as far as coffee before he told me to go talk to my dad. I didn't want to get into a third argument in less than three hours so I left and came back here." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't know _why_ I came back here," she said as she pulled back and started walking away.

He caught her around the shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. "Usually, when a man asks a question like that, it's because he want the girl to stay, sweetheart."

She turned in his arms so she was facing him again. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Life's short and you're hot." She reached up to slap him and he caught her hand as he chuckled. "I'm kidding, though you _are_ goddamn gorgeous."

"Smooth-talking bastard," she muttered as she played with the collar of his shirt.

"You started it, sweetheart," he said with a smirk. "You're the one who kissed _me_, remember?"

"Oh yeah." She bit her lip. "That wasn't _just_ to piss him off, by the way."

"Glad to hear it," he said as he threaded his fingers through her hair at the base of her skull and tipped her head back slightly. He captured her lips with his in a gentle kiss. "Happy birthday, Kat."

* * *

The rest of Shepard's shore leave, entirely spent in Zaeed's company, passed by too quickly for their liking. Then, she received her new assignment with a note attached from her father. He wanted to have dinner and talk. Alone.

_Jackass_.

"What do you want?" Shepard asked as she slid into the booth across from Admiral Hackett at the diner where she and Ryan had attempted to have breakfast on their birthday.

"I have to _want_ something other than to have dinner with my daughter?" He sounded genuinely hurt and she almost regretted her tone. Almost.

"I haven't heard from you in three weeks and now you suddenly want to talk, so yes, I kind of think you want something."

"That's because you told me to 'leave you the fuck alone' I believe were your exact words," Hackett growled. "I was just respecting your wishes, Katie."

"Suppose there's a first time for everything," Kat muttered.

"What is this thing with you and Massani?" he asked, apparently ignoring her last comment.

"See? I knew you wanted something." She shrugged. "It is what it is. Why the hell do you care?"

Hackett looked at her with concern. "Because you're my daughter and I don't want to see you get hurt."

Kat sighed. "There's nothing to hurt, Dad. We're not... it was never meant to be a long-term relationship."

"That may be how _you_ see it. What about Massani?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm done talking about this, OK?"

"Are you going to talk to Jason before you leave?"

"No."

"Are you ever going to talk to him again?"

"Maybe. If he ever stops being a stubborn jackass and apologizes, then, we'll see."

Hackett sighed. He had no response, because they both knew from years of experience just how stubborn Jason could be.

They ate dinner in silence, neither having any idea of a topic that wouldn't end in an argument. Finally the check came and Kat got up to leave as Hackett paid. He put a hand over hers to stop her.

"Arcturus. Four days, 0700," he said. "Report to Captain Anderson."

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

"And Katie?" His Admiral's mask had fallen away and when he spoke it was as a father to his daughter. "Please, be careful."


	12. Chapter 12

**Thanks for the review :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

_Six Years Later..._

Shepard was sitting in a pub in London when she received her newest assignment. The SSV Normandy. Commanding Officer was... Captain Anderson. Naturally. Shepard had been under his command off and on a few times since that first assignment after Akuze. It seemed that this time, the Captain had been asked to handpick his crew and she'd been his first and only choice for XO.

As she skimmed over the rest of the crew list, she recognized a few names. She and Jeff had gone to high school with Lt. Greg Adams, the Chief Engineer. Though she'd never served with him and didn't know him personally, she'd heard about Lt. Kaidan Alenko and knew that he was an impressive biotic. And Dr. Chakwas had been on the last two tours she'd served with Captain Anderson, so she knew the doc well.

Shepard was getting to the bottom of the list when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Jeff grinning at her.

"I see you haven't gotten to the best name on that list yet," he said with a wink.

She raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

He pointed to the entry for helmsman. _Lt. Jeff "Joker" Moreau_.

"My dad's gonna flip," Kat muttered. "You know there's a reason we've never served together before, yes?"

Jeff chuckled. "Because of things it was never proven we did as kids?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, because of what happened at my Academy graduation. And my N7 graduation."

He grinned. "Again, never proven."

"Anyway, what are you doing in London? Last I heard, you were on the Citadel."

"I was. Figured I'd take a couple of days' shore leave before we head to Arcturus to meet up with the Normandy crew."

"Awesome," she said with a wicked grin. "I was thinking I was gonna have to take this shore leave alone. Which is boring. Boredom leads to trouble."

Two days later, Kat and Jeff were standing in her father's office on Arcturus.

The Admiral sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why is it, whenever there is trouble, it's _always you two_?"

"No idea what you're talking about, Dad," Kat said, her face the picture of innocence. "I believe you'll find we're both model Marines and have been since the day we joined... more or less."

Hackett rolled his eyes. "When you're on duty, yes. Couldn't be more proud. It's when you're on shore leave that I worry. With damn good reason, apparently."

"Really? What reason would that be?"

"You just _had_ to ask," Jeff muttered.

The Admiral raised an eyebrow. "What was that, Lieutenant?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing, sir," Jeff said as Kat covered a snort of laughter with a cough.

Hackett shook his head. "Out, both of you. Why don't you go spend some time with Hilary?"

"Because Jeff's parents would never forgive us if she turned out like us?" Kat said with a smirk.

Her father rolled his eyes. "I'm hoping _sh__e'll_ be a good influence on _you_."

* * *

The rest of shore leave was relatively uneventful, until Hilary decided she didn't want them to leave.

"Dad, a little help?" Jeff pleaded, indicating Kat who was struggling to walk to the front door of the Moreaus' apartment while carrying their bags and wearing Hilary as a backpack. They'd spent the last couple of hours telling the twelve-year-old about their assignment and that they'd be back in a few months. It was when the two Marines had finished packing that Hilary had attached herself to the Commander and refused to let go.

"This wouldn't happen if you'd visit more," Mr. Moreau said in a stern voice, belied by the twinkle of laughter in his eyes, as he gently pried his daughter's fingers from Kat's neck.

"I promise, the next time we're on shore leave, my first stop will be to visit Hilary," Jeff said, rolling his eyes.

"And your parents," Kat hissed as she tickled one of Hilary's feet to get her to unwrap her legs and drop to the floor.

"Oh right. And you guys too," he added hurriedly. He looked at Kat. "Come on, we don't want to be late."

* * *

The subject of family was weighing heavily on Kat's mind a few weeks later. What was supposed to be a simple pick-up-a-package mission had ended with the near-destruction of the colony of Eden Prime by geth forces. Kat had been knocked out by a minor explosion, carried back to the ship by Lt. Alenko and laid unconscious in the med-bay for fifteen hours.

As the ship made the jump to the Citadel, she sat in the co-pilots chair, resting her eyes and tuning out Joker's chatter. She began thinking instead of young Cpl. Jenkins, fresh out of the Academy and on his first tour of duty, so proud to be assigned to the Normandy, only to end up dead defending his home colony. She wondered if his parents had survived the attack. She was irritated at the thought that he'd already been "replaced" by Ashley Williams, the gunnery chief they'd rescued from the geth minutes later. Anderson had made the decision to add Williams to the crew while Shepard was still unconscious.

And then there was Nihlus, the turian Spectre who had joined the crew and had been following the Commander around since the Normandy left Arcturus. Just before they touched down on Eden Prime, he and Captain Anderson had told Kat that "someone" had put her name forward as a possible Spectre candidate. Nihlus said the Council had been watching her for years, since Akuze. He was supposed to be mentoring her and preparing her to become a Spectre, the first _human_ Spectre. But, like Jenkins, he too had died on Eden Prime, killed by a fellow Spectre named Saren. According to Anderson, Saren was dangerous. But Nihlus' death got Kat thinking too. Did he have a family? When a Spectre died, were their families even notified, considering the dangerous and classified work they did?

"Holy shit! Look at the size of that thing!"

Shepard started awake at the sound of Williams' exclamation. She realized she must have dozed off after awhile as the Normandy was now heading towards the approach for docking on the Citadel. She looked up and saw the gunnery chief standing with Alenko behind Joker's chair, staring at the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel fleet.

Williams looked over as Shepard stood up and stretched. "Sorry, Commander."

"It's alright, Williams." Kat gave her a tight smile then flicked her eyes in Joker's direction as she said, "Certainly not the worst way I've been woken up in the last month."

She had to bite back a laugh when she heard him muttering under his breath. She distinctly heard the words _noisy little brats_ before he turned his attention to the Alliance officer in Citadel Control who would guide him into docking the Normandy.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Sorry for the uber-long wait. Hope y'all think it was worth it.  
Thanks for the reviews, favorites and follows :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

The meeting with Ambassador Udina and the Council had gone less than spectacularly. To make matters worse, Udina had decided it was up to Kat alone to find the evidence needed to bring down Saren. He'd cut Captain Anderson out of the investigation altogether.

_Fucking politicians. _

On a tip from Anderson, the Commander had gone down to the C-Sec Academy to pick up a krogan bounty hunter by the name of Wrex. He was an agent for the Shadow Broker, contracted to take out a fellow agent who had betrayed their employer by going to work for Saren instead.

"Krogan have a saying, Shepard. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'," Wrex had said.

She'd grinned as she'd stuck out a hand to shake his. "Humans have a similar expression. I think we're gonna get along just fine."

And they had. With Wrex along for the ride, Kat had sent Ashley to get some rest. Poor girl had had a long and trying day, and Kat suspected the gunnery chief didn't much care for the sudden association with the bounty hunter, krogan or not. Alenko had also gone back to the ship, complaining of a raging migraine.

With Alenko and Williams out of the way, Kat and Wrex headed to Chora's Den to follow up on a lead. They were looking both for Fist, the owner of the club and Wrex's target, and a man named Harkin, who was supposed to be able to tell them where Garrus Vakarian was. Garrus was the C-Sec officer who had been heading up the investigation into Saren's activities, until his boss shut him down. Kat knew he wanted Saren taken down just as badly as she did. And she could use all the help she could get.

Kat walked up to Harkin to ask him if he knew where Garrus was. The man was drunk, which was a common occurrence according to Anderson, and started hitting on her instead of answering her questions.

The next thing she knew, she was sitting on a bed in Dr. Michel's clinic in the Upper Wards as the doc patched a bullet wound in her arm.

Kat looked around the tiny clinic to see Wrex standing by the door, talking to Garrus. She wondered when and where they'd found the turian. She looked to the bed next to hers to see Ryan sitting on it, watching her with concern in his eyes.

She frowned. "Ryan? What are you doing here?"

"Vakarian called me after you got shot. Wondered if we might be related."

"When did I... OK. Back up and start over."

Ryan shook his head. "What's the last thing you remember, Katie?"

"Wrex and I were down in Chora's Den-"

"What the fuck were you doing down in that place?"

Kat shrugged. "Talking to Harkin, without success."

"I can't _imagine_ why," Ryan said sarcastically. "He's a model citizen and a perfect C-Sec officer."

"Yeah. We noticed." She sighed heavily. "He was..." She paused and looked over to the corner. "Wrex, can you come here for a minute?" Both Wrex and Garrus walked over. "What... happened in Chora's Den?"

The krogan glanced at Ryan before looking back at Kat. "What do you mean what happened? You were there, Shepard."

She shook her head. "I blacked out or something. Last thing I remember was the beginning of the conversation with Harkin. Nothing after that 'til a couple of minutes ago."

"OK that's... not normal," Dr. Michel said as she finished wrapping a bandage around Kat's arm.

Kat sighed. "Yes, I know that. I'm trying to figure out what set it off." She looked back at Wrex and raised an eyebrow.

"Well, uh, we walked over to him and he was hitting on you and you just sort of snapped and punched him in the face."

"I did _what_? Shit. Dad's gonna be pissed," Kat muttered. "What exactly did he say?"

"I don't remember everything, though I remember he called you _princess_. That was about the point you punched him. After that, he 'cooperated,' if you can call it that, we got the hell out and came up here. Found Vakarian and the doc."

Kat paled. "T-thanks, Wrex." She looked at the bandage on her arm. "So, how did I get shot?"

Garrus spoke up. "Firefight with Saren's thugs. Here."

"One of them clipped your arm," Wrex added. "Vakarian pulled you out of the way of another bullet and shot him in the head about two seconds later."

"Well this is just turning into a spectacular day," Kat grumbled. She looked at Garrus and gave him a small smile. "Thanks for the save."

The turian nodded. "Anytime."

"So this is all very _fascinating_," Ryan said. "But why were you here in the first place?"

"I'm more interested to know why one particular word sent you into a blackout state," Dr. Michel said, interrupting whatever Garrus was about to say. "That's just not..."

"Normal." Kat rolled her eyes. "Yes, so you said. I..." She glanced at Ryan. "It's a long story that I really would rather not get into right now. Or ever."

The doctor frowned. "If this is going to be an issue, Commander, that affects your ability to do your job..."

Kat shook her head. "It's not. It won't. Can I go now?"

Dr. Michel looked concerned but nodded. "Of course."

Kat hopped off the bed and motioned for Wrex, Garrus and Ryan to follow as she walked out the door. Once they were standing outside next to the transport terminal, she turned to Ryan. "I need to... talk to you. Later. First, I need to finish whatever it is Wrex and I started."

"We need to go back to Chora's Den, talk to Fist," Wrex said. "But Vakarian and I can handle that if you'd rather not go back, Shepard."

She shook her head. "I think if this is all going to play out the way it needs to, with taking down Saren, I need to be there. Better question probably is will Fist let us back in?"

"Doubt you'll be waltzing in as easily as you did the first time," Ryan said. "Officially, I'm obligated to give you the 'stay the hell away from Fist' speech. Unofficially..." He grinned. "Good luck and kick the bastard's ass."

* * *

"The back alley behind the Den. You can probably get to her if you hurry." Fist's final words still echoed in Kat's mind hours after she, Wrex and Garrus had saved Tali and used the quarian teen's evidence to convince the Council that Saren was working with the geth. They'd made Kat a Spectre and tasked her with taking him down.

Now Anderson had given the crew shore leave and everyone, Tali, Garrus and Wrex included, were sitting in Flux, celebrating. But Kat wasn't joining in, though they were celebrating _her_. Instead, she was sitting at a corner table with Ryan and Joker, as far from everyone else as possible.

"Katie? Are you... OK?" Ryan asked, bringing her out of her reverie. She looked up from the whiskey glass she'd been having a staring contest with to see both her cousin and her best friend looking at her with deep concern.

"I'm... fine. Why wouldn't I be?" she countered.

Joker put a hand over hers. "Because if you grip that glass any tighter, the two of you are going to have to get registered as a new species." He gently pried her fingers off of the glass. "You're supposed to be celebrating becoming the first human Spectre, not moping in a corner with us."

"And you told me you needed to talk," Ryan said. "I'm assuming about what happened in Chora's Den, but you haven't said a damn word."

"What happened in Chora's Den?"

All three looked up to see Admiral Hackett standing in front of the table.

"Shit," Kat muttered. "I mean hi Dad!"


	14. Chapter 14

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* * *

"I received a rather curious report from a Dr. Michel earlier," Hackett said as he and Kat walked to the terminal outside of Flux. "She mentioned you blacking out during a mission? And I received a second report, from a C-Sec captain about a fight in Chora's Den that involved, and I quote 'a female in Systems Alliance fatigues, a krogan known by C-Sec to be a bounty hunter, and one of our suspended officers.'"

Kat bit her lip and said nothing.

"So I'll ask again, what happened in Chora's Den? And what did Dr. Michel's report mean?"

She remained silent until they'd made the short ride from Flux to his apartment. She kicked off her boots and curled up in one of the overstuffed armchairs in the living room.

She started studying her dog tags intently as she finally spoke. "Do you remember where the Bastard's apartment was?"

"Yes, Katie." She could tell his jaw was clenched tightly as he spoke. "I believe that particular location is permanently burned into my brain."

"Well, then I guess you'd remember that one alley near Chora's Den that you went down to get there?" She took his silence as another affirmative. "That's where we found and rescued Tali."

"Katie."

She went back to playing with her dog tags. She didn't want him to see the tears that were threatening to fall. "Princess. According to Wrex, Harkin called me princess. And then I punched him."

"I don't under-"

"It was what _he_ used to call me when we were... Harkin apparently reminded me a lot of him. And when he called me princess, I just... something snapped." She finally looked up to find her father was no longer sitting on the couch but on the ottoman in front of her chair. "I don't remember anything, but from the way Wrex was talking about it in the clinic, he didn't realize I wasn't _there_, ya know? I was apparently still carrying on conversations, though I gather after the punch, Wrex did most of the talking. And aside from this," she ran a finger over the bandage covering the gunshot wound on her arm. "I made it through the small firefight in Dr. Michel's clinic just fine."

Hackett sighed. "That's not exactly a comforting thought, Katie."

"I'm just pointing out that it could have been much, much worse."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before he said, "So tell me about the alley."

"What about it? N-nothing happened."

"If nothing happened, then why mention it at all? And if this Harkin just reminded you of M- the Bastard, and his saying a single word put you in that state, then I can't believe that being that close to his-"

"Fine!" she snapped. "You want to know what happened? The second we stepped through the door, it was like watching parts of a vid. Instead of Tali and the men Saren had sent, I saw _everything_ that Marcus did to me in that alley before he took me to his apartment. It only faded when Tali set off an explosion which started a firefight with Saren's men. And the only reason no one knew anything about it was because I was gritting my teeth and pushing through it, trying not to freak out. Because I knew how important my job was, how important it was in that moment to get Tali and her information to the Council. And if I failed to do that, to do it the way it needed to be done, I'd have fucked everything up, failed the Alliance and disappointed... you." The last word was a whisper as Kat shifted around to pull her knees up to her chest and rest her forehead on them.

Hackett felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "Sweetheart, you have _never_ disappointed me," he said gently as he reached out and grasped one of her hands in his. "The only thing that matters to me is that you are OK."

"He's been dead all these years, but he's never going to stop haunting me, is he?" Kat looked up at him again. "He... you did..."

He gave her a tight smile. "Yes, sweetheart. He really is dead. He's not masquerading as a C-Sec officer. At the very least, I think Ryan would have noticed by now if he was. Harkin is just a sleazy drunk. Nothing more."

* * *

_Three Days Later..._

_Inter-Relay Text Chat  
Location: Solana Beach  
From: Jason Shepard  
To: Kat Shepard_

_12:52 J: Congrats on the whole becoming a Spectre thing.  
12:53 J: Everybody at the bar watched the ceremony on the news.  
13:04 J: I know, you're still not talking to me because of what happened with Massani.  
13:06 J: I'm sorry. And I know I should have said it six years ago, but then you left and...  
13:10 J: Look, I can't do this over text chat, OK?  
13:12 J: I'll be on the Citadel tomorrow, if you're still there.  
13:15 J: Come by if you can.  
13:20 User Has Disconnected._

* * *

Kat looked at the chat window with tears in her eyes. She'd wanted to respond but after so long, she didn't know what to say. And like Jason, she didn't want to do it over text chat.

"He really is sorry, Katie," Ryan said as he read the text over her shoulder. "He never meant to hurt you, to drive you away like that."

She nodded. "I know. And... I never meant for it to drag on for this long, I swear."

"Promise you'll meet him when he gets here."

"I will." He gave her a pointed look and she rolled her eyes. "I promise. So... why's Jason coming here, like specifically now?"

Ryan frowned. "Seriously? All these years and you've finally done it? You forgot your own birthday and more importantly..." He faked an over-dramatic sigh. "Mine?"

She patted his arm. "Yes, yes, you're very special. And no, dummy, I didn't forget our birthday. Not... entirely, anyway. But, does he usually come up to the Citadel for it?"

He shook his head. "No, this is when I usually take my vacation, go home to visit and all that."

"So why the change?"

"I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing it was probably a plot by your dad, because he knew you were going to be here."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And you knew nothing?"

"About this? No. About life in general? No comment."

* * *

Kat woke up early the next morning. She skipped breakfast and didn't wait for Ryan before she headed for the Alliance chapel to light a candle and say a prayer. She said an extra one, that she wouldn't bolt or say something stupid when she met with Jason.

She was still sitting in the back pew when someone sat next to her. She knew without looking that it was her uncle. After sitting in silence for awhile, she put her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "The fact that this went on for this long was entirely my fault."

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Maybe. But the whole thing started because I overreacted. And I am very sorry for that."

"Oh good, you're finally talking to each other again," an amused voice said a moment later. Kat and Jason looked over to see Hackett standing in the doorway of the chapel. "Can we go eat now? _Some_ of us got stood up for breakfast."


	15. Chapter 15

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* * *

Kat was now the reluctant commander of the Normandy, that being Udina's _brilliant_ solution to the problem of her needing her own ship, but at the cost of Anderson's captaincy. Her now-former CO was forced behind a desk, working in the ambassador's office.

"This just doesn't feel right," she said, flopping down into the co-pilot's seat as Joker set a course for Edolus. "It's like we stole the ship from Anderson."

"But we _didn't_," Joker said firmly. "And you thinking that isn't going to help you. At all." She glared at him, and he clarified. "I'm not saying what happened was _fair_. Far from it. But it wasn't your fault. And the crew knows that. They're all behind you. They'll follow you just as loyally as they followed him."

"If you say so." She looked at the data pad with the information she'd gotten from Admiral Kahoku. "So what do you think we're gonna find? What the hell could have happened to the Admiral's men?"

He shook his head. "Nothing good, that's for damn sure."

* * *

"There it is," Kaidan said, pointing out the distress beacon in the distance as Kat maneuvered the Mako towards it.

"Something doesn't feel right," Ashley said from the back seat. "Be careful, Shepard."

Kat nodded mutely. She'd been thinking the same thing. The sudden loss of communication, the eerie calm of the landscape around them, it all reminded her a little too much of Akuze.

And suddenly, she was right back there as a thresher maw came surging out of the ground a hundred yards from their position. Kaidan and Ashley were yelling, probably telling her to move, but all she could hear were the screams of the ghosts of Akuze.

Kat found herself jolted back to reality when she crashed into Kaidan as the ground under the Mako shook violently and they flew across the front seat and crashed into the opposite door.

"You OK, Commander?" he asked as they disentangled themselves.

"Fine. I'm fine," she said in as steady a voice as she could muster. She looked at him and glanced back at Ashley. "You two OK?"

They nodded. "What the hell was that?" Ashley asked.

"Thresher maw must have shifted position. We gotta... gotta go."

"If this is where Kahoku's men fell, we can't leave them," Kaidan said. "What about your-"

"Don't you _dare_!" Kat growled. "I'm not... we're not leaving them. I just meant we need to get off of the nest until the Mako's shields regenerate." She glared at him. "Unless you _want_ to die because thresher maw acid caused the Mako to explode."

"Then drive, Shepard!" Ashley snapped from the backseat.

She drove them a short distance away where they were out of sight of the nest.

"So basically, some evil fucker put a distress beacon on top of a thresher nest," Kaidan said after awhile. "Why?"

"My money's on it's the same ones responsible for Akuze," Kat said. "That colony was built right next to a nest. But as for why, I have no fucking clue."

"So what do we do?" Ashley asked. "We need to get to the beacon and shut it downor others are going to fall into the same trap."

"This thing's got guns. Rockets too. So we use 'em. Shoot the shit out of that fucking worm and then we do what I couldn't do six years ago. We take those soldiers home."

* * *

"Thresher maws?" The look on Admiral Kahoku's face was one of disbelief after Kat told him what she and her squad had seen. "Like..."

"Akuze. Yes, sir."

"Damn."

"We destroyed the beacon before we left, so no one else would fall into the same trap."

"Thank you, Shepard. I'm sure that couldn't have been easy for you."

She shook her head. "It was what it was, sir. I'm just glad I could bring them home."

"I need to investigate this further," the Admiral said. "This is... not right. I'll let you know what I find out."

She gave him a grim smile as she saluted. "Thank you, sir."

As she stepped into the elevator to go back to the Presidium, she found it occupied... by Kaidan.

_Shit. Not what I need right now._ "Lieutenant," she said with a curt nod as she leaned against the opposite wall from where he stood.

"Commander. I just wanted to apologize for earlier," he said after the doors had closed. "I was _way_ out of line."

"Yes, you were," she said coldly. "But thank you for having the balls to admit it."

As the elevator made its slow descent from the Council Chambers, Kat found herself staring at the floor, trying to forget the day and the other passenger in the car. So when Kaidan spoke again, as the doors opened onto the Presidium, she flinched slightly.

"Can I buy you lunch or something? As more of an apology or-"

She held up a hand. "I can't. I've got other stuff to do before we head out again, a couple of people to meet. I would assume the crew is meeting at Flux tonight though. So maybe I'll see you then." She stepped out of the elevator and walked off without waiting for a response.

* * *

Kat had spent the last twenty minutes arguing with Helena Blake just outside Barla Von's office. As she made what Kat thought must be one last pitch to get her way, the older woman suddenly paled.

"I'll send t-the coordinates to your ship, Commander," she stammered as she began backing away. "Y-you can decide to use them or not. I have to go. Good-bye."

Kat turned to find out who or what could have made such a supposedly _fearless_ woman so terrified and saw a familiar scarred mercenary leaning against the wall next to the transport terminal nearby.

"Friend of yours?" she asked with a smirk as she walked over.

Zaeed shrugged. "Never seen her before in my life."

"Well, whatever that was, your reputation of shoot first and ask questions later just saved me from having to punch an old woman to get her to shut up," she said with a strained laugh. "So... thanks."

"Rough day?" He pulled her into a hug and she melted against him. They hadn't seen each other since the day he dropped her off on Arcturus before her first assignment with Captain Anderson, but it felt as if no time had passed.

She sighed and shook her head against his chest. "Nothing a couple of sleeping pills or a few shots of whiskey won't cure."

He gently pushed her back to look in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"It's... nothing... just the past keeps coming back to haunt me the last few days." She sighed heavily when a beep on her omni-tool alerted her to a message from Rita, the cocktail waitress at Flux. "Damn. And I thought today was just beginning to pick up a little."

"Where are you going?" he asked as she started walking towards the wards corridor.

"Chora's Den."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why the bloody hell would you want to go to there?"

"A favor for a friend. Her sister works there, wants me to convince her to go back to Flux."

"I'm coming with you."

She shrugged. "Fine by me. Didn't fancy going by myself anyway. Last time I sort of... punched a guy. Maybe I can avoid that this time."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course. Heaven forbid you go into a bar without getting into a fight."

"Bite me."

Two hours later, Jenna was out of Chora's Den and the closest Kat had come to a bar fight was wanting to slap the shit out of the girl for being so stupid as to work there in the first place. Now, she stood with Zaeed at the bar in Flux, watching Jenna reunite with Rita.

"Aren't family reunions the best?" she said with a smirk. She knew it wasn't going to be long before Rita was regretting Jenna coming back to work. Jenna had a charisma that netted her more customers than Rita could ever dream of having.

"Speaking of..." He looked at her pointedly.

"Jason and I made up, a week ago. So you can quit bugging me about it." They may not have seen each other in six years, but that hadn't stopped them from sending messages back and forth every couple of months. All of his ended with asking if Jason had stopped being a stubborn bastard.

"Glad to hear it. So what is it that's driven you to drinking again?"

Before she could answer, Kat felt a hand on her arm. "Is this guy bothering you, Commander?" Kaidan asked.

She spun around to face him. "Does it _look_ like he's bothering me, Alenko? We're having a conversation."

He pulled her away from the bar a bit. "Do you know who that is? He's dangerous, Shepard."

"He's a hell of a lot less dangerous than _I_ am right now," she growled. "What is your problem? Is this because I turned you down for lunch?"

"What? That's ridiculous. I just don't think you should be hanging out with bounty hunters. They can't be trusted."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You saying we can't trust Wrex? He's a bounty hunter. I dare you to say that to his face."

Kaidan appeared to be speechless.

She smirked as she wrenched her arm from his grasp. "That's what I thought." She leaned in close as she spoke in a low voice. "Question me again, and I'll throw you off my ship. Now go away!"

As Kaidan stormed off in a huff, Kat felt Zaeed come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist. "I forgot just how adorable you are when you're angry."

"Thanks. I think."


	16. Chapter 16

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* * *

"That was _not_ at all what I had envisioned when Udina said Exo-Geni had lost contact with its colony on Feros," Kat grumbled as she, Garrus and Wrex trudged through the airlock, covered in... she didn't want to think exactly what the hell they were covered in.

Joker turned his chair to face them as they came into the cockpit. "Oh, you look _gorgeous_," he said with a smirk. "And ya know who would love to see you _exactly_ as you are? The Council."

She gave him a one-finger salute before heading to the comm room.

"We received your report on Feros, Commander," the asari councilor said. "We're pleased you were able to save the colony."

"Of _course_ she saved the colony," the turian councilor sneered. "Shepard will go to _any_ lengths to save a _human_ colony."

"Not just for a human colony," Kat shot back. "I'd do the same for any species."

"Glad to hear it," the salarian councilor chimed in. "But remember, the mission must come first. Everything else is secondary."

Kat was tempted to say something... else. Instead, she told Joker to cut the connection.

She could hear the smirk in his voice when he said, "Please, tell me you're going to do that _every_ time you talk to the Council."

She laughed. "Well, if they insist on being so very condescending and unhelpful..."

* * *

A few days later, having investigated and stopped an attempted geth invasion into the Skyllian Verge, the Normandy was en route to Noveria to confront Saren's lieutenant when Kat received a frantic message from Admiral Kahoku. He'd found out who had set the trap for his men, and now they were after him too.

Kat told Joker to head to Binthu immediately. If the Admiral was in trouble, she intended to help in any way possible. She owed him a great deal, as he and his men had been the ones who had found her on Akuze.

"Whoever these Cerberus bastards are, they are _sick_," Kaidan said after they'd cleared two of the bases they had coordinates for. The first had held spider-like creatures that shot poison at them; the second contained more of the exploding zombies they'd encountered on Feros.

"Just one more base," Kat said as they followed Garrus back to the Mako. "I hope we find the Admiral this time."

Three hours later, they'd found him and were wishing they hadn't. He was dead, in a containment field identical to the ones at the other two bases, with another of the spiders, larger than the ones they'd encountered previously. But the poisonous creature didn't appear to be his means of death. It looked as if he'd been _placed_ there after they'd killed him, exactly so Kat would find him. Someone knew she was investigating his claims.

There was a terminal with another set of coordinates, in another system. After a brief detour to Arcturus to deliver Kahoku's body to his family, the Normandy set a course for the Columbia System.

Despite the high number of soldiers guarding the base on Nepheron, it didn't take Kat and her squad long to clear it. They downloaded as much information from the terminal as they could before it began a self-destruct sequence.

The moment they were back on the ship, Joker informed Kat that there was someone waiting to speak to her on the comm. The _someone_ turned out to be an agent for the Shadow Broker. According to him, the coordinates Kahoku had given to Kat had been given with the expectation that any information he found would be in turn given to the Shadow Broker. Even though Kahoku was now dead, the Shadow Broker still expected Kat to give him said information. She laughed and told the agent to go to hell. Cerberus was an enemy of the Alliance, therefore she was sending the information directly to her father. End of story. She rolled her eyes at the _warning_ that she would regret not giving the information to the Shadow Broker if she ever needed a favor from him. When the hell was she ever going to need a favor from _him_?

* * *

With Cerberus operations disrupted for the moment, Joker reset the course for Noveria. It was time to see what Saren's top lieutenant knew.

After a tense and _pointless_ stand-off with Noveria security, Kat began the arduous process of trying to gain access to Peak 15, where Lady Benezia had last been seen. Administrator Anoleis wasn't having any of it. He flat out refused to give her a pass to the garages and arguing with him was pointless. Finally, Kat left in a frustrated huff, Garrus and Wrex on her heels.

"Anoleis isn't the only one with a pass to the garage."

Kat spun around to see the administrator's secretary motioning her over.

"Talk to Lorik Qui'in at the hotel bar," Gianna Parasini said. "Can't say more within earshot of Anoleis."

Kat nodded and she and her squad and they made their way to the hotel on the other side of the port.

Lorik Qui'in turned out to be a turian looking for revenge against Anoleis. He was convinced the administrator's business dealings were less than ethical, though as Kat pointed out, that described nearly every person on Noveria. Regardless, she needed the damn garage pass, so she agreed to help the turian by breaking into his former place of employment and retrieving his evidence against Anoleis.

Qui'in was less than enthusiastic about Parasini's request to testify against Anoleis once Kat brought the evidence from his office. But in the end, he saw reason, or as he put it, "It's good to be the one holding all the cards."

One harrowing snow-blind Mako ride later and Kat and a nauseous Wrex and Garrus were fighting not only geth but more of the spiders that they'd seen while fighting Cerberus. She thought there must have been a fault in the VI's system when it identified the creatures as rachni.

"But the rachni are extinct! What the hell is going on here?"

When they _finally_ reached Rift Station, Kat had to decide which to deal with first, who was the bigger threat: Benezia or the rachni. She finally concluded that while the rachni were the bigger threat, to everyone, they should deal with Benezia first.

The asari Matriarch was clearly insane. Or indoctrinated. Maybe both. Either way, Kat knew she had to be stopped, if for no other reason than she was controlling the rachni queen. After a brief conversation and a long and brutal battle, Benezia had a moment of clarity and gave Kat coordinates for a long lost relay. After she died, Kat went over to the tank holding the rachni queen. Wrex argued for killing the creature, Garrus against it. In the end, Kat decided that she just couldn't take the chance of the rachni taking over the galaxy again. She set the acid tubes to trigger and they headed to the hot labs.

The lone scientist in the lab revealed the reason for the rachni's sudden reappearance: Binary-Helix had found the queen as an egg and decided to hatch it, but they'd separated her from her babies. Kat knew then that she'd made the correct decision in killing the queen. She set a neutron purge to kill the rest of the rachni that remained in the lab and she got out not a moment too soon. She was nearly overrun by the swarm of them before she reached the safety of the elevator and her waiting companions.

She leaned against the elevator wall to catch her breath. "If I never see another rachni again in my life, it'll be too soon."


	17. Chapter 17

**Thanks for the review****and follows**** :)  
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* * *

"Dad, I have to ask you a question," Kat said. She was talking to her father via vidcomm for what felt like the millionth time in the last three weeks. Because of all of the missions he'd sent them on, they'd only just retrieved a very freaked out Dr. T'Soni from Therum a couple of days ago. "Is this some sort of _punishment_ for something I don't remember doing? Or maybe something Joker did?"

Hackett frowned. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"This... the constant missions. I mean, there's gotta be something to this. I am not a goddamn helper monkey. Not to mention, the Normandy isn't the only ship in the Fifth Fleet, and if you want to get technical, we're not _in_ the Fifth Fleet."

"You may be a Spectre, Katie, but that ship and most of the crew, including Joker, are still Alliance. As are you." He sighed. "And this one, this particular mission, it has to be you. I don't think you'll refuse it anyway."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Lay it on me. Where are we going now?"

"Someone, we don't know who, has been killing off former Alliance scientists."

"Former?"

"Yes. And every single one of them was involved in a classified project... on Akuze."

"Sonofabitch," she muttered under her breath. "Alright, you've got my attention, Dad."

"The last remaining scientist who worked on that project was last seen in the Newton System. So we-" Kat glared at him and he rolled his eyes. "_I_ need you to go find out what's going on."

"Fine. We'll contact you when we've got it resolved, one way or another. Shepard out."

* * *

Kat didn't really know what she had been expecting to find when they finally got inside the bunker where the last scientist was holed up, but it sure as hell wasn't _this_. She was almost positive her mind was playing some dirty trick on her.

"Toombs?" She stared wide-eyed and disbelieving at the man holding Dr. Wayne at gunpoint. "This... you're not... I don't understand. I thought you were dead. I swear, if I'd known... I would have come back for you."

"You and the others were lucky. They all died. And you... you made it out with a few scars and a scary reputation. The fucking 'sole survivor.'" Toombs snorted derisively. "I woke up in a Cerberus lab, where they did endless experiments. For years. Do you know what it feels like to have thresher maw acid in your veins, Shepard?"

No one said anything for a full five minutes, Kat, Ashley and Kaidan having been stunned into silence. Finally, Kat took a step towards the two men. "How did you escape?"

"A couple of months ago, someone started investigating Cerberus and taking out operatives," Toombs said. "From the looks you three are giving me, I'm guessing that was you. Anyway, the lab where they were keeping me was abandoned and... I don't really know how I got out after that." He gave Kat an appraising look. "If you're here to stop me, Shepard, you'll have to kill me. But I don't think you will. You're too... _good_ for that."

Kat sighed. "I get that you want your revenge, I really do. But don't you think Wayne could be put to better use being put on trial, maybe helping to take down Cerberus for good?"

"No." Toombs pressed the gun more firmly against the side of Dr. Wayne's head. "He needs to die with the rest of them."

"So what? You get your revenge and then spend the rest of your life in prison for murder? Is that _really_ what you want?"

"You could do it, Shepard," Ashley said. "You're a Spectre. And-"

"And nothing, Williams," Kat said firmly. "I'm not shooting the bastard. Toombs, put the gun down. Dr. Wayne and the others, they were murderers. If you kill him, you'd be no better than he is."

Another few moments of hesitation and the corporal finally put his gun down. While Ashley and Kaidan watched Wayne and Toombs, Kat told Joker to request a Fifth Fleet transport for them.

"Do the nightmares ever end, Shepard?" Toombs asked quietly as they walked towards the entrance to the bunker.

Kat shook her head. "If mine ever do, I'll let you know."


	18. Chapter 18

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Beta: pixelatrix  
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* * *

"Again, I am very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Williams." Kat sighed heavily as she hit the button to disconnect the comm. She'd never had to do a death notification before and she didn't know how those, like her father, who had to do it all the time got through it. She'd never wish the experience on her worst enemy.

"You OK?" Joker asked as she dropped into the co-pilot's seat, suddenly feeling very tired.

"No." She knew there was no point in lying. "I see a large bottle of whiskey in my future."

He looked over at her with concern in his eyes. "Kat..."

She glared at him. "What? You think it's easy having to tell somebody their kid isn't coming home, and that it was because of you? Fine. Then by all means, you can do the _honors_ next time."

He opened his mouth to say something but decided against it and went back to concentrating on flying, something they both knew he could do easily in his sleep.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, Jeff. I didn't..."

He waved away her apology and she got up after a minute to make her rounds, making sure everyone was alright.

"Just... be careful."

She turned back to see him watching her. "Be careful?"

"I'll never change who you are, Kat, not that I want to," he said quietly. "I just... worry about you when you get like this, that's all. You know I'm not the only one."

"I'll be... fine," she said, not entirely believing it herself. "I know my limits."

"Do you?" He shook his head. "You and emotional drinking don't mix. There is more than enough history to support that. I just don't want you to end up doing something that may cost you in the long run."

"What did you think I was going to do, sit in a corner and drink myself into oblivion?"

"It wouldn't be the first time."

"Look, I'm not having this argument again, OK?" She sighed. "Just let me know when we get to the Citadel."

* * *

Kat had sent him a message stating that her crew was headed back to the Citadel, so Zaeed shouldn't have been surprised to see her in his apartment, especially when he heard that Ambassador Udina had locked out the Normandy. Except that she wasn't _in_ his apartment, but sitting on the floor in the hallway, leaning against the front door.

"Why are you sitting out here?" he asked as he held out a hand to pull her up off the floor. "You know the door code."

She shrugged. "Forgot it."

"And you're here instead of with your crew because...?"

"Same reason I stayed with you after Akuze. You're not judgmental," she said as she followed him into the apartment. He raised an eyebrow and she elaborated. "Joker and I got into an argument on the way back from our last mission. He says he doesn't want to change who I am, yet whenever I mention drinking, he gets all kinds of judgmental. With everything that's happened in the last few weeks and _especially_ what happened on Virmire, I needed a damn drink. Udina's betrayal was just the icing on the cake."

Zaeed sat on the couch and pulled Kat down into his lap. He wondered what exactly had gone wrong in her last mission and in the weeks since he'd last seen her, because the Kat Shepard he knew wouldn't have been so easily defeated by one jackass. She'd normally have come up swinging against a man like Donnel Udina.

He ran his thumb across a new scar on her jaw. "You drink for the same reason I do, to forget." He brushed his lips across hers. "So what is it you're trying to forget this time?"

She was silent for awhile. "Have you ever been on a mission where you were forced to leave someone behind in order to save another?"

"Once." He shook his head. "Fucking hardest decision I've ever had to make."

She sighed heavily. "We all knew the risks when we were forced to split up at the beginning. It should have been a harder decision than it was. But Kaidan was with the group we'd been sent to find. Ash was alone, guarding the bomb. So I left her."

"Sacrificing the one to save many," Zaeed said, remembering an eerily similar situation he and Hackett had been in during the First Contact War.

"Do you ever wish you could go back and do things differently?" Kat asked quietly.

"It wasn't so much wishing I'd done it differently as wondering what would have happened if I had." He tightened his arms around her. "But no, I know I made the right choice. If I'd done things differently, then you-" He cut off his own words.

She frowned. "Then I what?"

He sighed. "Your dad and I were in a squad that got trapped by a squad of turians. We were getting slaughtered. Lost half of the squad fairly quickly. The only way out was leaving one man behind to fend off the turians for as long as possible."

"And Dad was one of the ones you had to choose between?"

"Yes."

Whatever she was going to say next was cut off by a message from Joker. "Shit. I gotta go. Captain Anderson apparently has a _plan_ to get us out of here." She kissed him and looked him straight in the eye. "We're not done talking about this."

And then she was gone.


	19. Chapter 19

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* * *

As his escape shuttle carried him away from the wreckage of the Normandy, effectively leaving his best friend to die all alone, Joker just sat and stared at the necklace in his hands. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten it, but he guessed Kat must have slipped it into his pocket before they got separated. Because she knew even before that final explosion that she wasn't coming back.

"It should have been me," he screamed angrily, squeezing the pendant in his hand. "You should have left me in that fucking cockpit and saved yourself." Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew what her response would have been. She'd never in a million years have left any of her crew behind, not if it was in her power to save them.

* * *

All but one of the escape shuttles had arrived at the rendezvous point, docking with the ships of the Fifth Fleet that had responded to the distress signal. Now the crew sat in the med-bay of the largest ship, talking in hushed voices, while Hackett paced impatiently in the shuttle bay, all of them waiting for their commander and pilot.

Finally, the last shuttle arrived. The door opened but no one came out. Hackett walked over and his face drained of color as he looked inside. Joker was sitting with his head in his hands. He was... alone.

"Jeff? Where is Katie?" Hackett asked as he stepped into the shuttle and sat in the seat across from the pilot. He hadn't really needed to ask the question, because he already knew the answer. She was dead.

Joker refused to look at him. Instead, he dropped a familiar silver shamrock necklace into Hackett's hand. "I'm sorry, sir. It's entirely my-"

"It absolutely is not your fault, Jeff," Hackett said firmly. "Whatever happened, Katie did her job, just as you did yours."

Joker shook his head. "That may be true, sir, but she shouldn't have had to... I had this stupid idea that I could save the Normandy, even blown in half as it was. Kat got everyone she could into the shuttles and then came back for me."

"And? You know damn well that if your positions had been reversed she would have done the same thing you did. I don't know a single pilot who wouldn't have done everything they could to save their ship."

"Even past the point where the ship _could_ be saved?" Joker asked bitterly.

"Yes." Hackett stood up and lifted Joker to his feet. "Come on. You can't stay in this shuttle forever."

"The hell I can't," Joker growled. "Just close the door and shove it back out of the shuttle bay."

Hackett clenched his fist around the necklace to avoid punching the man. "I was under the impression Katie meant more to you than that, Jeff."

"She... I..." Joker sighed. "I didn't mean anything by it. Not... really anyway."

The elevator ride from the shuttle bay was tense but silent. Hackett left Joker at the door of the med-bay and swiftly made his way to his own quarters. He needed to tell Jason and Ryan before the media got wind of the story. It wouldn't be fair to either of them if they found out via ANN.

* * *

Ryan was on third shift, patrolling one of the areas that had been hardest hit by the geth attack, so Jason was the one to answer when the terminal in the living room started beeping at 05:40 with a vid-comm hail.

He stifled a yawn. "Steven, what the hell is-" He abruptly stopped talking at the look on the admiral's face. It was akin to the look Jason remembered seeing when Steven had called to tell them about Akuze. "What's wrong?"

"The Normandy was... attacked. Destroyed. All but twenty-one made it to the rendezvous point. Katie is... she didn't..."

"No!" Jason knew what Steven was trying to say but couldn't. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I won't believe-"

"I have her necklace," Steven said quietly.

Jason frowned. "What necklace?"

"Lara's... the one I gave Katie for her 16th birthday. The one she never ever took off."

"How?"

"Jeff gave it to me." Steven swallowed hard. "He was... the last one to see her before..."

"Fuck."

"Will you tell Ryan? I..." Steven sighed heavily. "I have to talk to the Council and... see if Anderson will inform the rest of the families. I can't do this again."

"Of course, Steven. We'll see you on Arcturus in a couple of days as we'd already planned."

Steven nodded and disconnected the comm.

Jason took a shuddering breath and sank down into the nearest chair, his head in his hands. He was still there twenty minutes later when Ryan walked through the front door.

"Dad? Why are you... you're almost _never_ up at this time."

"Sit down. We... something happened. We need to talk."

"What do you mean _something happened_?" Ryan asked as he sat on the couch. "What's going on?"

Jason couldn't bear to look his son in the face as he repeated everything Steven had told him. Silence filled the room when he had finished. He looked up as Ryan stormed out of the room, muttering curses as he punched the wall. He hadn't expected any different. In Ryan's eyes, he hadn't lost his cousin, he'd lost his little sister.


	20. Chapter 20

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* * *

_Two Years Later..._

"_Cerberus_?" Kat couldn't believe what she was hearing. She slowly backed away from her two _companions_ until her back hit a crate. Jacob started walking towards her and she raised her pistol. "Don't. You... stay the hell away from me. Why the _fuck_ would Cerberus want to bring me back from the dead?" She still wasn't entirely sure she wasn't still dead and this was some circle of Hell.

Jacob shook his head. "I can't answer that, Shepard. You want to know the _why_, you're going to have to trust me to get you off this station so you can talk to the Illusive Man."

"Ah yes, because I'm likely to believe anything _he_ tells me," she said sarcastically. "I'll trust _you_, Taylor. At least you had the balls to tell me the truth. Though god knows why you thought it would actually make me _less_ likely to expect one of you to stab me in the back."

Jacob shrugged. "You were going to find out sooner or later anyway. Figured it couldn't hurt."

"Boss is not gonna be happy with this," Wilson said as he limped past Kat.

She eyed him warily. "I don't give a shit what makes _your boss_ happy, Wilson. I'm not fucking working with Cerberus."

"You may feel differently once he answers your questions," Jacob said, falling in beside her as they followed Wilson to the next room.

* * *

Four hours later, Kat was standing in the comm room of a second station, being _brought up to speed_ by the Illusive Man. She was still absolutely furious at the thought of working with Cerberus, but the more he talked, the less it seemed she had any choice in the matter.

She crossed her arms and glared at the holographic image of the smug bastard. "Fine. I'll stop the Collectors. But I'll need my own team. People I can trust."

"I have a list of people you should consider. Those who were on your crew before, most are either still with the Alliance and therefore unavailable or we have been unable to locate them."

She frowned. "Most?"

"I think you'll find your pilot is quite familiar." Without another word, the Illusive Man disconnected the comm, leaving Kat standing in confusion in the darkened room.

She spun around as she heard footsteps behind her. Her mouth fell open as she saw Joker standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"You... work for Cerberus." She couldn't believe what she was seeing. "After everything... Akuze, Kahoku, Toombs... you actually agreed to work for these bastards? How _could_ you?"

"Kat, I can explain," Joker said, following as fast as he could as she stormed past him up the stairs. When he finally caught up with her, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into an empty room. She tried to leave but he blocked the door.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Well? What's your _explanation_, Jeff?"

He leaned against the wall beside the door. "Look. After you died, everything changed. Everything you'd stirred up about the Reapers, the Council just wanted it gone. They dismissed every claim you'd made about Sovereign being a Reaper, everything Vigil said on Ilos, all of it. The Alliance was no better, really. And finally, I'd had enough. They'd grounded me, damn near Cat-6'd me. So I left."

"You just... left? What did your parents say? They're Alliance to the core."

He looked down at the floor. "Mom died, Kat. After that, Dad took Hilary and went to a colony called Tiptree. I didn't... I haven't talked to them in a year. They don't know I joined Cerberus."

Kat crossed the room in two seconds and wrapped her arms around him. "I... I'm so sorry." She sighed as she laid her head on his shoulder. "You're gonna have to talk to them eventually."

"This seems very familiar," he said with a laugh. "Have we had this conversation before?"

She grinned. "Several times, I think. But never this way around." She lifted her head to look at him. "Promise me you'll talk to them. Hilary's already lost her mom; don't make her lose her big brother too."

He nodded. "I will. Eventually. After we're done with Cerberus."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Whatever. So... you're not gone for good?"

He chuckled. "No, I'll go back eventually, if the Alliance will take me back."

She smirked. "Well as you've said every day since you graduated from flight school, you're the best damn pilot in the Alliance. I don't think they can afford _not_ to take you back." She raised an eyebrow. "So... does _my_ dad know you're with Cerberus?"

"No. I left the Alliance about six months after you died. Stayed with my parents after my mom got sick. After she died, I wandered around for a bit until Miranda Lawson offered me a job."

"Surprised you managed to have a civil conversation with her. She may be one of the most condescending people I've ever met in my life."

He grinned. "It _was_ a challenge. I just tried to remember how I'd gotten through every infuriating conversation I'd ever had with you and it wasn't _too_ bad."

"Jackass," she muttered as they walked down the hall. "So this should be a _very_ fun conversation with my dad."

"Oh yes, very fun." He looped his arm through hers. "You ready to see the new ship?"

"Ship?"

Joker rolled his eyes. "Yes, ship. It's that big metal thing we fly around in." She glared at him and he laughed as he steered her towards a large window. "They only showed me last night."

Kat gasped as the lights on the other side of the glass turned on one by one to reveal an enormous shuttle-bay and its lone occupant, a frigate-class starship like the Normandy, but nearly twice the size of the original.

Joker grinned at her reaction. "Welcome to the new Normandy."

* * *

_From: Steven Hackett  
To: Kat Shepard  
Subject: Taking a Chance_

_I'm not sure if this is real or someone's idea of a sick joke, but someone sent me an anonymous message a couple of days ago saying that you were alive. _

_If it's true and you are the one reading this, Katie, please contact me. Let me know you're alright._

_Dad_

By the time Kat finished reading the short message, she was gripping the desk so hard, her knuckles were white. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her yeoman Kelly giving her an odd look. Before the woman could offer some sort of encouragement or voice her concern or whatever the fuck she kept babbling on about, Kat closed out her terminal and walked up to the cockpit to talk to Joker.

"So I had an interesting message on my extra-net account," she said as she sat in the co-pilot's seat.

"Oh?"

"From my dad."

"Oh."

"Seems _someone_ sent him a message telling him I was alive." She swung the chair around to face him. "Would that someone be you?"

"Nope. Haven't talked to your dad since my mom's funeral."

"So you just... stopped talking to _everyone_."

He nodded. "Pretty much." He glanced over at her. "I'd put money on the Illusive Man being the one who sent that message."

"Wouldn't surprise me." She sighed as she stood up. "Alright, wish me luck."

"Yep. Good luck. Definitely."

Kat dragged her feet as she walked to the elevator to go up to her quarters. She sent a vid-com hail to her father's office on Arcturus and then paced nervously in front of her desk as she waited for him to respond. She knew it was likely he would think it was another sick joke when he saw that the hail was coming from the Normandy.

Finally, the screen lit up and a very agitated-looking Admiral Hackett appeared.

"Christ," he muttered as he stared at her. "I can't... is this real?"

She shrugged. "So they keep telling me."

"How?"

"I don't... know." She bit her lip for a moment. "Did Jeff give you my necklace? I forgot to ask him about it."

"He did, yes. And then he tried to convince me that he should stay in the escape shuttle forever."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course he did. Stubborn idiot."

Hackett frowned. "Wait. What do you mean you forgot to ask him? You know where he is? We've been looking for him for six months."

"Um... yeah. About that..."

"What? What's wrong?"

Kat hesitated. Now that it came down to it, she had no idea how to tell her father that she was with Cerberus. That the organization she had hunted as a Spectre was in fact the very thing that was responsible for her being alive.

"I... in the message you sent, you said somebody had sent you an anonymous message about me being alive." She sighed. "Jeff and I are thinking it's very likely the person who sent you that message was the Illusive Man."

"The head of Cerberus?"

She nodded mutely.

"Why the hell would he know you were alive?"

She swallowed hard. "Because I'm... for the last two years, I've been his _pet project_."

His eyes opened wide. "Excuse me?"

"The Lazarus Project, that's what he called it. They took my... me... from Alchera and did... I honestly have no fucking clue what they did. But I woke up about ten hours ago on a Cerberus space station."

Hackett seemed at an uncharacteristic loss for words. After awhile, he settled on, "I don't understand... why. Not that I'm in any way unhappy that you are _alive_, but... just... _why_?"

She shook her head. "It's... complicated."

And then he asked the question she'd been dreading. "Are you with Cerberus now, working for them?"

"For them? Fuck no. _With_ them... in the loosest definition of the word, maybe."

"Explain."

Kat sighed. "The Illusive Man wants me to look into and, if possible, _stop_ the attacks on human colonies in the Terminus. I'm in a Cerberus ship, surrounded by a Cerberus crew. But I absolutely flat out refuse to acknowledge that _I_ am part of Cerberus. I'm... I don't know what I am. Independent is the best I can come up with at the moment."

"Glad to hear it. And Jeff?"

"You'll have to fucking ask him that yourself, Dad. At the moment, all _I_ care about is that I have at least one person on this ship I can trust implicitly."

"And the fact that he's the one flying the ship is just a bonus," Hackett said with a knowing smirk.

She smiled. "Exactly."


	21. Chapter 21

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* * *

Despite not wanting to listen to Miranda about _anything_, Kat reluctantly decided that her suggestion of heading to Omega first made sense. At the very least, if everything went well, they'd have two decidedly non-Cerberus crew on board.

By the time the Normandy was ready to leave Omega, Kat was feeling more calm and confident about their chances of success in stopping the Collectors. She was instantly enamored with the incredibly chatty Mordin. Even when _recruiting Archangel_ turned into _rescuing an old friend_ coupled with _dodge the rockets from the crazy batarian_, she didn't bat an eye. She was just happy to have Garrus back.

And then, she received a message from her father. According to him, _the Alliance_ needed her to go to Alchera and find the dog tags of those others who had been lost. And while she was there, if she wouldn't mind placing a beacon for a memorial that was going to be built there.

"As if it's going to become some sort of fucking tourist attraction," she said bitterly as she paced in the cockpit. She passed by Joker again and he reached out and grabbed her hand to stop her. She glared at him. "_What_?"

"First of all, you're making me dizzy with this constant pacing, so just... stop it." He let go of her hand. "Second, just because they _want_ you to do something doesn't mean you _have_ to do it. You're not-"

"Not part of the Alliance anymore?" she growled. "Yes, I noticed."

He sighed. "Kat, I didn't mean anything by it. I just meant you don't have to do what any of them want you to do anymore. You don't owe them a damn thing."

"I know. But this isn't about _them_. The admiralty." She sat in the co-pilot's chair and turned to face him. "My family got... closure... sort of. At the very least, Dad got my dog tags, eventually, and he had, well... _you_. But for everybody else who died that night, their families got nothing. Probably just a general 'I regret to inform you' from either Dad or Anderson. At the very least, I can send them their dog tags, even if it is two years too late. Ashley's mom didn't even get _that_."

Joker raised an eyebrow. "So the angry and the pacing was what?"

"I just... I dunno. The idea of the memorial, of _anyone_ else going there besides the surviving crew, seems... wrong somehow." She sighed as she stood up. "Alright, I'll be back in a few hours."

He stood up with her. "I'm going with you."

She nodded mutely and didn't ask why. She hadn't really wanted to go alone anyway.

* * *

The shuttle ride was filled with silence, Kat and Joker both lost in their own thoughts. When they landed, he stayed in the shuttle with a list of the twenty names and she went to search for the tags. As she found each one, she radioed back to him to check them off. They wanted to make sure they found every single one.

Joker suddenly realized it had been entirely too long since Kat had checked in. She'd been radioing ever few minutes whether she had a tag or not.

"Kat, where are you? Are you OK?" When she still hadn't responded after another few minutes, he decided to go out and find her. An unknown place plus the strong emotions that went with the place were a dangerous combination.

It didn't take long to find her. He saw her long before he got to her, sitting on the edge of a cliff, holding something in her hands. When he caught up to her, he realized it was a severely damaged breather helmet. With the N7 insignia on the side.

_Fuck_.

He sat next to her and took her hand. She didn't look at him but after a couple of minutes, he heard the static when she turned her comm back on.

"Thanks for coming with me," she said after a few more minutes of total silence. "I don't think I could have done this on my own."

"I've always got your back. You know that."

"Ditto." She stood up and pulled him to his feet. "Come on. Only three more left."

They quickly retrieved the last of the dog tags and chose a spot right beside the remains of the Mako for the memorial beacon. Kat also left her damaged breather helmet there. For that, Joker was thankful. It wouldn't do her any good to have it sitting around in her quarters where she could stare at it and dwell on what happened. Not that _he_ hadn't done exactly that for months after her death.


	22. Chapter 22

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* * *

Miranda's protestations that they should be heading for Purgatory or Korlus went unheard and Kat told Joker to head for the Citadel. She'd received a message from Councilor Anderson, stating that a meeting had been called so that she could explain her side of the _disturbing rumors_ the Council had been hearing in the last few days. She'd rolled her eyes repeatedly but sent a return message to Anderson indicated she'd be there. And Miranda couldn't _actually_ complain that they were wasting time, since the Illusive Man had indicated there was someone on the Citadel they needed to pick up as well.

As was usually the case with the Council, Kat left the meeting in a worse mood than she'd gone in. The only thing that saved the day from being a complete bust was the confrontation between Anderson and Udina. Apparently two years as the Councilor's "assistant" hadn't cooled the Ambassador's sense of entitlement and he still had to be told _where to go_ when he complained that he hadn't been informed of the meeting.

After a quick catch-up conversation with Anderson, Kat and Joker headed to the Dark Star Lounge for a drink. She groaned in frustration when she heard someone calling her name as they stepped out of the sky-cab. She looked up to see the bitchy reporter who had tried to get an interview off of her just after she'd become a Spectre, standing near the entrance to the lounge.

"Come on," Joker muttered in her ear as he slipped an arm around her waist. "I know another place we can go. I know the owner. He's a big fan of yours."

"Oh this should be fun," she said as she let him steer her away from the lounge and down the stairs. "Where the hell are we going?"

"Just a little place that opened up after the geth attack. A lot of places, especially in the wards, didn't reopen, so new people moved in."

"That didn't answer my question, Jeff."

They stopped in front of a place not far from C-Sec. A sign over the entrance read Bar One; a second read: _All Alliance and C-Sec personnel drink free with __valid__ ID._

When Kat hesitated, Joker pushed her through the door of the bar. "Trust me, you'll be glad you came here instead of Dark Star."

"If you say so." She followed him to a booth and sat down as he went up to the bar to get drinks. She frowned at him when he came back five minutes later without the drinks. "What gives?"

"I brought someone over who wanted to say hi." Joker grinned. "I'll see you later," he said as he started to walk away.

"Jeff Moreau, I'm gonna..." Kat stopped talking instantly as she saw who the _someone_ was.

Jason set the drinks he was carrying on the table before he sat down next to her and pulled her into a hug. "If that had been anyone other than Jeff telling me you were here, I would have slugged them and kicked them out of the bar," he said after a moment.

She pulled back and stared at him. "Dad didn't tell you, did he?"

"No, he didn't." He handed her a shot glass. "If you'd been in his place, would you have had any idea _how_ to say 'Oh hey, remember two years ago when I said your niece died? Well, turns out, she didn't.'"

"Smartass," she muttered as she downed her shot. "And technically, I did. But whatever. So, what made you decide to move up to the Citadel?"

"It was a combination of things really. After the geth attack, I'd already been kind of thinking about it, but not all that seriously. Then you died and, well... Ryan took it really hard. I would... be careful when you talk to him. He's kind of back to the way he used to be when you two were kids, angry all the time. But, obviously, for very different reasons. I don't know how easily he'll believe that you're... you."

"Well this should be _interesting_, at least, since _I_ don't exactly believe I'm me."

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head before he stood up. "You are definitely you, Katie."

"If you say so." She stood up with him and followed him to the bar. "I'll be back later. I gotta go meet some woman who's supposed to be part of my crew. We'll see."

"Part of your crew? You sound like pirates. What the hell are you and Jeff up to now?"

Kat shook her head. "It's a long story. Let's just say we're... not exactly in the good graces of the Alliance or the Council and leave it at that."

"Alright. I'll see you later then. And remember what I said about Ryan."

"I know." She took a deep breath and voiced the thing that had been worrying her most. "What if he _doesn't_ believe I'm me?"

"I said it wouldn't be easy, I didn't say it would be impossible. As much time as the two of you spent together as kids, you must still have secrets that only you know."

"Yeah I guess." She waved absentmindedly to Jason and walked out of the bar.

After meeting with the thief Kasumi Goto and getting her settled on the Normandy, Kat wandered around the Zakara Wards for awhile. She knew she was being stupid, avoiding talking to Ryan. She was saved from worrying about it further by a message on her omni-tool.

* * *

_From: Zaeed Massani  
To: Kat Shepard  
Subj: Citadel?_

_Your dad messaged me a couple of days ago, said you were alive? He also may have mentioned something about what you're up to. _

_If you're on the Citadel, we need to meet ASAP. My apartment code hasn't changed. Unless you still can't remember it. _

_-ZM_

* * *

Kat smiled at the message. She didn't bother with a return message and quickly made her way to Zaeed's apartment. He was sitting in his living room, cleaning his assault rifle, when she walked in.

"Bloody hell. He wasn't lying," he muttered as he got up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest. "Do you have any idea how much I fucking missed you these last two years?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck as she looked up at him. "It hasn't felt like anywhere close to that for me, maybe a month and a half? But I missed you too. So why..."

"Later," he growled, capturing her lips with his in a bruising kiss as he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and carried her into his bedroom.

Two hours _later_, Kat was lying in Zaeed's arms, wishing they could stay exactly as they were forever. Forget the Collectors, the Reapers, Cerberus. But she knew reality would come knocking eventually, as it always did.

She reached up to trace the long scar on his face with her thumb. "_Now_ can I ask why we needed to meet ASAP?"

He chuckled as he sat up against the headboard and pulled her up with him. "As I said, Steven told me a little about what it is you're doing now. And he may have... tried to persuade me to join you."

She looked at him. "Tried?"

"I told him there was something I needed to take care of before I could go _gallivanting across the galaxy_. Those were his words, not mine."

"Of course they were." She laid her head on his chest. "So if you'd already decided you couldn't do it then..."

"I needed to see for myself that you were alive. I didn't think he'd make up something like that, but you never know. Grief does funny things to people." He lifted her head in his hands. "Anyway, I'm not saying no. I... there _is_ something... some_one_, really_, _that I need to take care of. And then, I'm all yours."

"Let me help."

"No."

"Please? I know what you did for Dad, finding..." she sighed. "Marcus."

He frowned. "How?"

"He told me. After I stopped being furious at him after Akuze, I asked him _how_ it was you just happened to know damn near everything about me when I had never even heard your name mentioned. So he basically told me the entire history of your friendship." She leaned up and kissed him. "Let me help. Please."

"It's likely to be dangerous."

"If I ran away from dangerous, I wouldn't have joined the Alliance. Also would have told the Illusive Man to go to hell when he said stopping the Collectors would likely be a suicide mission."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh yeah." She smiled weakly. "I may have forgotten to mention that to Dad. Still interested?"

Before Zaeed could respond, Kat's omni-tool started beeping with an incoming vid-comm hail.

She sighed as she hurriedly threw her clothes on and grabbed her omni-tool. "Why me?" She hit the button to answer. "Hi, Uncle Jason."

"You haven't been to see Ryan yet." It wasn't a question.

"Um... no." She raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"

"Because he just came into the bar after his shift was over, and when I asked him if you'd been by to see him, he looked at me like I had four heads."

"Oh."

"By the way, your dad just arrived from Arcturus."

"Don't look at me, nobody ever tells me anything."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I figured maybe we could all have a nice family dinner?"

"Sure. Because that's _ever_ happened in the last... thirty years," she said sarcastically.

"Point taken. Oh, and Massani's not invited."

"How did you-"

He smirked. "Your shirt is on backwards."

She looked down. "Oh shit."

"See you at 1900."


	23. Chapter 23

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Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

"Is he here?" Kat asked when Jason opened the door to his apartment.

"Well hello to you too," he said with a smirk, stepping back to let her inside. "And you'll have to be a bit more specific."

"Your son." She rolled her eyes. "Who'd you think I meant, the President of the UNAS?"

He chuckled. "Oh how I've missed that sarcastic wit of yours, Katie." He gave her a little nudge in the direction of the hallway. "Go on. Better go talk to him before your dad gets here. Before any potential yelling begins."

"Oh great. What now?"

"Nope, you're not distracting me that easily. Go."

Kat set the box containing the dog tags from Alchera on the coffee table and made her way down the hall to the den, where Ryan was watching a Blasto vid on the TV.

"You gonna stand in the doorway all night or are you gonna come over here and watch this with me?" he asked after she'd stood in the doorway for a few minutes.

"Well, _some_ people said you wouldn't believe I was... real," she said, not moving an inch. "So, I was being cautious."

He paused the vid and turned to face her. "Never said I believed you were real, yet. Just hate it when people are watching over my shoulder."

"Well, we know _you_ haven't changed," she said sarcastically as she moved into the room and sat on the other end of the couch.

He rolled his eyes and went back to watching the vid. She watched without actually watching. Her mind was focused on trying to think of a way to convince him once and for all. And then it hit her. As usual, everything came back to the Bastard. It always had and it always would, whether they liked it or not.

She reached over and paused the vid, ignoring his grumbles of protestation. After being on a ship with Miranda for a week and a half, she'd all but tuned it out when most people complained. She turned to face Ryan. "That day when the truth finally came out, Marcus," he glared at her and she ignored him, "told the whole truth. Except one thing. The one detail that his sense of self-preservation refused to let him reveal. If he'd just changed that one tiny thing, your dad probably would have flown off the fucking handle and shot him and..." She swallowed hard and fell silent for several minutes. She could feel Ryan looking at her. She knew that he knew exactly what she was going to say but he needed to hear her say it. It was the one thing they'd never told their fathers, even after the truth came out.

Finally she sighed heavily and looked over at him. "A-after he shot... everyone... he turned the gun on us. It wasn't the way he told your dad, that he just handed Kyle the gun and Kyle shot him in the shoulder and Kyle took off with us. It was..."

"Kyle grabbed the gun from him and took us to prevent him from shooting us," Ryan said quietly.

"WHAT?"

Kat and Ryan turned to see both of their fathers in the doorway of the den gawking at them.

She held up a hand and looked over at Ryan. "Well?"

He smirked. "You're either back from the dead or the most realistic clone in history."

She rolled her eyes. "Jerk."

"Are you two quite finished?" Jason asked, sounding surprisingly annoyed.

"I... guess?" She frowned up at him. "What? You _told_ me to talk to Ryan. I talked to him. So what's your deal all of a sudden?"

"I was under the impression you were going to go talk to him this afternoon, Katie, not ignore him in favor of fucking Massani."

"What the _hell_ is your problem now? First of all, I told you I had to deal with a crew issue, which thanks to Dad, _included_ Zaeed. Second of all, when I talked to you earlier, you weren't all pissed off like you are now. So what's going on, Uncle Jason?"

"First-"

"_Enough!_" Hackett snapped as he stepped away from the doorway and into the room to stand between Jason and Kat. "Tonight was supposed to be about the family being together again."

"Uncle Steven, we _are_ all together again," Ryan said. "Just not in the delusional _aww look at that picture-perfect family_ way that Dad was picturing when he thought it up."

"Yes, in the _oh look there goes Katie off to adopt another family_ way," Kat said as she sat and glared at them with her arms folded across her chest. "Except this time, that family will be Jeff, Zaeed, Garrus and Mordin. The misfits of the galaxy who don't fucking belong anywhere anymore." She stood up then and quickly hugged her father before she turned to all three of them. "Now since I already figured tonight was going to end up like, well, every other family gathering the four of us have _ever_ had, I am off to meet my _other_ family at the Dark Star Lounge. You guys can come too, but only if you promise to behave." She stared pointedly at her father and uncle. "And you two have to swear on your lives not to shoot my- Zaeed."

Hackett raised an eyebrow. "'Your' Zaeed?"

She huffed. "Shut up."

He chuckled. "And how come Ryan doesn't get a warning?"

"Because, out of the three of you, he's the only one who's never said a damn word on that particular subject." She sighed as she glanced over at the couch. "Knowing Ryan as I do, that's probably going to bite me in the ass someday, and that day is probably today, but there it is."

He shook his head. "Nope. I might have some strong words for these two idiots at some point, but as far as Massani's concerned, as long as you're happy, he and I have no problem."

"Thank you, Ryan." She smirked at her father. "_That's_ why he doesn't get a warning. Concerning Zaeed." She glanced back to her cousin. "But if you even think about hurting Jeff again, I will rip you in half."

He grimaced. "Heard about that, did you?"

"In _vivid_ detail. From Jeff. And Garrus. Several times each. They... may have been a bit bored after they finally got tired of trying to break the ship's AI and I would imagine the details any of the three of _you_ gave would differ from those they gave even from each other." She rolled her eyes. "Never mind that he spent the last six months on Omega as a vigilante fighting gangs; if you listen to Garrus, breaking up a fight between my cousin and my best friend at my memorial service was _the_ most exciting thing that happened in the last two years."

* * *

"What the bloody hell took you so...no, fuck that. Why the hell is _he_ here?" Zaeed asked when Kat finally walked into the Dark Star twenty minutes later, Ryan in tow.

"Nice to see you too, Massani," Ryan growled as he passed by on his way to the bar.

Kat sighed. "He's here, in theory, to apologize to Jeff, two years after the fact. And also because both of our dads were being unreasonable idiots, so we left."

Zaeed chuckled as he wrapped his arms around her. "Sweetheart, those two are _always_ being unreasonable idiots. What was it about now?"

She leaned her head against his chest. "Would you believe me if I said I don't remember?"

"Hell no. But, judging by the murderous glares the pair of them are giving me and the way they're stalking over here, I have a bloody good idea."

She groaned. "Fuck my life."

"I'd rather-"

She put her hand over his mouth as she leaned up to whisper in his ear. "Don't even think about finishing that sentence right now, Massani." She extracted herself from his arms and walked over to Garrus. "Dance with me."

From the look he gave her, she might as well have asked him to marry her. "Excuse me?"

She took his arm and dragged him to the dance floor. "I need something to distract me."

"Bad day?" he asked sympathetically.

"Not really, most of it was fine. It's just been the last hour or so. The real distraction is so, if things go south quickly, you can say later at my trial that you at least _tried_ to prevent me from killing what's left of my family, my best friend and my- Zaeed." Garrus opened his mouth to comment and she glared at him. "If you don't want to join the hypothetical bloodbath, you'll keep your comments to yourself, Vakarian."

He chuckled and spun her as the song finished. "I wasn't going to say a word, about _your Zaeed_." He dodged her punch with a smirk. "I was just going to say it's too bad Wrex isn't here. He'd create all the distraction you'd ever need."


	24. Chapter 24

**Thanks for the ****new follow****s**** :)  
Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

When everyone returned to the ship the next morning, all of them thoroughly hung-over and cranky, Kelly was at her station to greet them as they passed by her on their way to the elevator. Kat suspected she'd never left.

"Welcome, Miss Goto! I look forward to getting to know you. Commander, welcome back! I hope your reunion with your family was-" Kat knew the instant that Kelly spotted Zaeed. Her overly-chipper voice faltered for a moment when she continued. "P-pleasant? I was unaware that... I thought the only new addition to the crew on the Citadel was Kasumi Goto."

Kat tried not to laugh as she introduced them. "Kelly Chambers, this is Zaeed Massani. And no, you did not know he would be joining the crew. Hold on just a second." She turned to Zaeed and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Head up to the first floor. I've already spoken to the AI; it knows you're not an intruder."

He chuckled darkly. "If you say so," he said as he headed into the elevator.

Kat turned back to Kelly as the doors closed. "Alright, listen up, Little Miss Cheery. Don't try to go all... shrink-y on Zaeed. He isn't _nice_ like the rest of the crew. If you screw with him, he's likely to tell you stories so horrid that you'll need your own damn shrink for second-hand PTSD. Come to think of it, I could probably do the same. Point is, leave him alone. Leave _me_ alone too. I know you're supposed to be here to evaluate the crew. Fine, evaluate away. But leave me out of it. I get enough of that from Joker. He's been my unofficial psychotherapist since we were five. He and Zaeed understand me. They keep me sane... enough. But you? You will _never_ understand me. 'K?"

Kelly looked confused but nodded. "If you say so, Commander."

"You're gonna tell the Illusive Man all that, aren't you?"

"I would be... yes, I will be including that in my daily report to him."

Kat smiled sweetly. "Good. I wouldn't want you to be _remiss in your duties to your employer_." She turned as she headed for the elevator. "And since you asked... no, my family reunion wasn't exactly _pleasant_. But for us, it was _normal_."

* * *

Kasumi had a job she needed Kat's help with in a system right next to the Citadel, but her plan wasn't entirely in place yet and Zaeed said the jackass he was after wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, so the Normandy headed instead to the prison ship Purgatory. Jack wasn't exactly what Kat expected, but then again, she hadn't _really_ known what the fuck to expect when she read Subject Zero's dossier. In another life, they probably wouldn't have liked each other. Or most likely, Jack would have ended up as _this crazy biotic bitch_ in one of the bounty hunting escapades Zaeed told Kat about over a bottle of whiskey. In this life however, the two women had a common enemy: Cerberus.

On the way to Korlus to pick up the krogan warlord Okeer, they began _plotting_ against Miranda, EDI, Kelly. Jack had decided, as Kat had, that Jacob wasn't _evil_, his priorities were just a little screwed up. Then again, the ex-con biotic had decided that _Kat's_ priorities were a little screwed up as well. She couldn't understand how the Normandy hadn't turned pirate the second Kat had taken control of it.

Kat was almost thankful when Okeer sacrificed himself for his _one perfect krogan_ experiment. She wasn't sure the slightly deranged warlord would have cut it even with her misfit crew. Despite the protests of Miranda and Jacob, she released the "baby" krogan from his tank and knew immediately she had a winner. Grunt strongly reminded her of Wrex. She also suspected Grunt and Jack would get along well. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen.

A planned rest and resupply on Omega was cut short by a message from the Illusive Man. The Collectors' next target was supposedly the colony of Horizon. Kat bit the bullet and asked him why he thought that specific colony was the target.

"Because it has ties to you, Shepard. Kaidan Alenko is stationed there."

_Fuck._

* * *

_Six Hours Later_

_Frustrated and pissed the fuck off_ didn't even begin to describe how Kat felt after they'd gotten back from Horizon. She'd already gone through half a bottle of whiskey and now she sat on one of the couches in her quarters, her terminal in her lap, waiting for her father to respond to her vid-comm hail.

"Katie?" He frowned at the bottle in her hand. "What's wrong?"

"Kaidan Fucking Alenko, that's what," she snapped.

"That's not explaining much of anything, except I'm going to assume you've been on Horizon for some reason."

"So, you knew... oh why the fuck am I asking such a stupid question? Of course you fucking knew he was there. You probably put him there."

"That was not me, actually. I may have approved it, I don't remember, but I wasn't the one who suggested it. What were _you_ doing there?"

She huffed in frustration. "The Illusive Man told me the Collectors would be on Horizon. He said it was because of Alenko, because he was tied to me, being part of my old crew. Whatever. So... yeah." She held up the bottle. "But this? This is for the colonists we didn't even come close to being able to save."

"I'll assume you actually spoke to Staff Commander Alenko?"

"Did we have a conversation? Not exactly. He, like most of the Alliance, has certain opinions about my current _employer_ which I declined to listen to. He started spouting his crap, so I turned and left."

Hackett smirked. "I have to say, that is not the reaction I was expecting from you, but I'm proud of you."

Kat shook her head. "I was protecting the ungrateful son of a bitch. If I hadn't left when I did, he'd likely be either severely injured or dead."

"How's that? Thought you said you were ignoring him."

She flicked her gaze towards the man sitting on the other couch, a cigar clenched tightly in his teeth as he cleaned their weapons. "It wasn't me, Dad."

Hackett sighed heavily. "Massani."

"He called her a bloody traitor, Steven," Zaeed snarled as he wiped his hands on a cloth and came over to sit beside Kat. "The Council doing it is one thing. That's to be fucking expected, the bunch of jackals. But this... you just expected me to sit by while-"

Hackett held up a hand. "So he wasn't talking about Cerberus specifically. It was about Katie."

"Yes."

The admiral frowned again. "Katie?"

She shrugged. "What? His mind is made up so he wasn't going to listen to anything I said anyway, so why the fuck should I waste my breath or my time on him?"


	25. Chapter 25

**Beta: pixelatrix  
Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.**

* * *

The atmosphere on the Normandy had changed. The crew had always known the mission was dangerous, but Horizon was a wake-up call of just _how_ dangerous. While they all kept reassuring Kat that they had the utmost faith in her, everyone was now busy making preparations to tie up loose ends, just in case they didn't make it back from their trip through the Omega-4 Relay. She definitely couldn't blame them. And if she could pull it off without pissing off a certain hardheaded pilot, there was a loose end she wanted to tie up herself. She understood his reasons for not talking to his father and sister while he was with Cerberus, but on the other hand, he just _stopped talking to them_. There had never been closure.

She'd worry about that later. He didn't seem bothered by it, so he could wait. The rest of the crew, not so much.

Not long after Horizon, Miranda came to Kat asking for her help in resolving a family issue.

_Family drama is my specialty_, Kat thought bitterly.

As much as she loathed her Cerberus XO, the woman's father seemed like an absolute monster and making sure her sister was kept safe from him was something Kat could get on board with. The whole operation was supposed to take place on Illiam and the Normandy was scheduled to dock there anyway, to see about two more recruits for the crew. And as Joker pointed out, it was also the perfect place for the shore leave that had been interrupted by Horizon.

* * *

"Oh that is just wrong. So very, very wrong," Joker said as he and Zaeed walked into the Eternity nightclub. He'd just spotted three people who did _not_ belong together.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Zaeed asked as they walked up to the booth shared by Kat, Miranda and Jacob.

"We're drinkin' 'til our internal organs start a rev'lution an' leave," Kat said in a slightly slurred voice.

Zaeed shook his head and sighed as he took her arm and pulled her to her feet. "Not with these two, you're not."

"'Parently, I'm goin' over here now." She waved at Jacob and Miranda as Zaeed and Joker dragged her to another table.

Joker pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers in move so reminiscent of her father that Kat nearly fell out of her seat laughing. "Why... just... why?"

"Why what? Why am I drinking?"

"Not what I meant, but sure, let's start with that."

She curled up in the seat, her back against the wall. "Just family shit."

Zaeed raised an eyebrow. "What did the jackasses do now?"

She shook her head slightly. "No, not mine. _Hers_," she said as she pointed back towards the other table.

"Why would you care about Miranda's family? You don't even like her." Joker said.

"O' course I don' like _her_. But she has a li'l sister," she said quietly. The look in her eyes was apparently lost on Zaeed, but Joker understood completely. It wasn't really about Miranda at all. And if he was reading it right, it _was_ a bit about Kat's own family, that she missed how close she and Ryan used to be. But mostly, it was about Hilary. She missed her. He did too.

He sighed. "Next time we're on the Citadel, we'll go talk to your uncle and I'll ask him if I can use his vid-comm to send a message to Hilary and my dad, all right?"

Kat smiled. "Glad you can still take a hint. Thought it was gonna be a lot harder."

Joker rolled his eyes. "And if Miranda hadn't had a sister that needed rescuing, then what would you have done?"

"I..." She reached across the table and grabbed his beer. "Shut up."

Zaeed still looked confused. "Somebody want to tell me what in the hell just happened?"

* * *

To some, taking the two least sociable members of the crew along when trying to recruit new ones would be a mistake. Nevertheless, Kat was happy to have Zaeed and Jack's help while fighting through masses of Eclipse to get to Thane. While she could just imagine Miranda's disapproving glare, neither of _them_ batted an eyelash when Kat decided to drop one of the Eclipse soldiers out of a window for being less than helpful. And it wasn't much later that she'd also brought Samara back to the ship.

Before she could act on the information she had for Liara regarding the Shadow Broker, Kat received an emergency message from Tali, saying she and a squad of quarian marines were stranded on a planet in geth space. She didn't need the pleading look from Garrus to convince her that Haestrom should be their next stop.

"Just like old times," he said, not for the first time, two days later, as they showed Tali around engineering.

"Not exactly," the quarian said with what they could only imagine was a smirk. "But it'll do for now."


End file.
